The American Association of Law Libraries has presented the 2026 Joseph L. Andrews Legal Literature Award to two groups of women for their outstanding contributions to legal literature and scholarship.
Beth G. Adelman and Jessica de Perio Wittman were awarded for co-editing Organizational Structures of Academic Law Libraries: Past, Present, and Future (Volume 3) (William S. Hein & Co.), a collection of case studies exploring how academic law libraries are adapting within today’s higher education landscape. Additionally, Nicole Paccione Dyszlewski, Diana J. Hassel, and Monica Teixeira de Sousa were honored for their co-authored book Race and the Foundations of American Law (Aspen Publishing, 2025), a casebook examining how systemic racism has shaped American law from its origins to present day.
Beth G. Adelman is a SUNY Distinguished Librarian, director of the Charles B. Sears Law Library, and vice dean for legal information services in the School of Law at the University at Buffalo in New York. She is also a teaching faculty member who leads a course on legal research skills. Professor Adelman is the lead author of New York Legal Research (Carolina Academic Press), now in its fourth edition. She holds a juris doctorate from Albany Law School in New York and a master of library science degree from the University at Buffalo.
Jessica de Perio Wittman is a professor of law, a Cornelius J. Scanlon Scholar, and director of the Thomas J. Meskill Law Library at the University of Connecticut. As a professor, she teaches courses on advanced legal research, technology and law practice, and special education law. Her research interests include technology in legal education, assistive and adaptive technologies intersecting with law and libraries, and diversity initiatives for legal education and the profession. A graduate of Stony Brook University in New York, Professor de Perio Wittman holds a juris doctorate from Seattle University and a master of library science degree from the University at Buffalo.
Nicole Paccione Dyszlewski is a professor and assistant dean for curricular innovation at the Roger Williams University School of Law in Bristol, Rhode Island. Her work centers on building a more inclusive and equitable legal system. She is the co-editor of the Integrating Doctrine & Diversity book series and an active participant in Pennsylvania State University’s Antiracist Development Institute. Her next book, Antiracist Teaching and Learning, is set to be published in 2027 by University of California Press. Professor Dyszlewski is a graduate of Hofstra University in Hempstead, New York. She holds a master of library and information science degree from the University of Rhode Island and a juris doctorate from Boston University.
Diana J. Hassel is a professor at the Roger Williams University School of Law, where she has taught for more than three decades. She teaches courses on constitutional law, civil rights, critical race theory, and race and the law and writes in the areas of civil rights litigation, due process, and integrating issues of racial justice into the law school curriculum. Professor Hassel previously taught at New York University. She holds a bachelor’s degree in English from Mount Holyoke College in South Hadley, Massachusetts, and a juris doctorate from Rutgers Law School in New Jersey.
Monica Teixeira de Sousa is a Distinguished Research Professor of Law and director of the Housing Policy Clinic at Rogers Williams University School of Law. She currently teaches courses on property, housing law and policy, education law, family law, and race and the law. In her own scholarly work, she focuses on critical class studies, education law and policy, and housing. Before joining the Roger Williams faculty in 2022, she was a tenured professor at New England Law Boston. A graduate of Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island, Professor Teixeira de Sousa received her juris doctorate from the Georgetown University Law Center in Washington, D.C.