Faculty Awards 2023
Mercer University School of Law’s Board of Visitors’ Faculty Award Recipients Announced
Congratulations to the recipients of the 2023 Mercer University School of Law’s Judge Clyde Reese Board of Visitors’ Awards for Excellence. Professor Bonnie Carlson is the recipient of the Judge Clyde Reese Board of Visitors’ Award for Excellence in Scholarship. Professor Sarah Gerwig is the recipient of the Judge Clyde Reese Board of Visitors’ Award for Excellence in Teaching. This year, the awards were renamed to honor Judge Clyde Reese, ’96 who passed away in December 2022. During his time on the Board of Visitors, he played a pivotal role in the development of these two awards and served on the selection committee for the scholarship award.
Carlson, who was honored in recognition of her outstanding academic work Keeping Guns in the Hands of Abusive Partners: Prosecutorial and Judicial Subversion of Federal Firearms Laws, published in the Brooklyn Law Review, earned her bachelor’s degree at the University of Virginia; her J.D. at The George Washington University Law School; and her LL.M. at Georgetown University Law Center at the George Washington University Law School. During law school, she was awarded the National Association of Women Lawyers Outstanding Law Graduate Award for her work with domestic violence victims. Carlson started her career as a family law staff attorney for the Alexandria office of Legal Services of Northern Virginia for four years representing victims of domestic violence. She joined the Mercer Law School faculty in 2021 from Georgetown University Law Center, where she was a Clinical Teaching Fellow in the Domestic Violence Clinic.
In that position, she co-taught the clinic seminar and supervised clinic students in their representation of domestic violence victims in Civil Protection Order litigation. Prior to working at Georgetown, Carlson was a Training and Technical Assistance staff attorney with the American Bar Association Commission on Domestic & Sexual Violence. In that position, she wrote training curricula and publications for attorneys practicing domestic violence law around the country. In the fall semester of 2022, she launched and now oversees, Mercer Law’s Domestic Violence Clinic modeled on the one she co-taught at Georgetown. The clinic is partnering with Crisis Line & Safe House of Central Georgia where students work with clients who want to file for protection or temporary protection orders.
Nominated by members of the Class of 2018, Gerwig is honored in recognition of her lasting educational influence on students. Before joining the Mercer faculty in 2006, Gerwig was the senior appellate supervising attorney in the central office of Georgia’s statewide public defender system. She earned her bachelor’s degree, summa cum laude, from Mercer University; her J.D. from Emory University School of law; and her Master of Theological Studies from Emory University’s Candler School of Theology, where she studied with Archbishop Desmond Tutu. Her other honors include the Candler School of Theology Distinguished Alumni Award (2017); the Shanara Gilbert Emerging Clinician Award from the AALS Clinical Legal Education Section (2013); the Robert J. Benham Award Community Service Award (2011); and in 2016 she was named as one of Georgia Trend’s 40 Under 40. Her teaching and scholarship interests include constitutional criminal law, law and literature, and experiential public service learning. In 2006, Gerwig developed the Habeas Project at Mercer Law School, which provides pro bono representation in pro se cases pending before the Supreme Court of Georgia and in other cases presenting pressing constitutional issues. She became associate dean for academic affairs in 2019 where she managed the areas of accreditation, assessment, and curriculum. In her current position, Gerwig serves as the director of experiential education and directs Mercer’s unique Introduction to Client Counseling program.
Judge Clyde L. Reese,’96, for whom the awards are named, was a dedicated member of the Mercer Law School Board of Visitors since 2018 and a strong supporter of Mercer Law School. He established the Judge Clyde Reese Book award in honor of his parents Clyde and Dorothy Reese, awarded annually to a deserving minority student to help defray the cost of law books. Prior to his appointment to the Georgia Court of Appeals in 2016, Reese was the commissioner of the Department of Community Health. His legal career in healthcare-related fields and his time at the Department of Community Health allowed him to shine an important spotlight on the challenge of access to healthcare in rural Georgia.
