ALI member Catherine Sharkey, the Segal Family Professor of Regulatory Law and Policy at NYU School of Law, has been selected by the Association of American Law Schools (AALS) Section on Torts and Compensation Systems to receive the 2026 Prosser Award, one of the field’s highest honors. The award recognizes lifetime contributions to the scholarship, teaching, and service of tort law and is named for William L. Prosser, author of the foundational treatise Prosser and Keeton on Torts.
A nationally recognized scholar, Sharkey’s work bridges tort law, regulation, and public policy. Her research has shaped legal understanding in areas including liability insurance, health and safety regulation, punitive damages, the economic loss rule, and federal preemption of state tort law. More recently, she has expanded her focus to include the legal implications of artificial intelligence and online product marketplaces. Her scholarship has been cited by the U.S. Supreme Court, five federal circuit courts, and the highest courts of ten states.
Sharkey is also deeply involved in the work of the American Law Institute. She serves as an advisor for both the Restatement Third of Torts: Remedies and Principles of the Law: Civil Liability for Artificial Intelligence, and previously served in the same role for the Restatement Third of Torts: Liability for Economic Loss.
“Cathy Sharkey is, without question, the leading scholar who presents torts as a public law subject,” said Judge Guido Calabresi of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, one of Sharkey’s mentors and a former Prosser Award recipient. “She has analyzed all sides of the topic with brilliance, fairness, and depth.”
Sharkey has authored more than 90 law review articles, essays, and book chapters, and co-authored two major casebooks with Richard Epstein: Cases and Materials on Torts and Business, Defamation and Privacy Torts. She joined the NYU faculty in 2007 and received the Podell Distinguished Teaching Award in 2010. In addition to her ALI work, she is a senior fellow of the Administrative Conference of the United States and a member of its Roundtable on Artificial Intelligence in Federal Agencies.
Harvard Law School Dean and fellow Prosser Award recipient John Goldberg praised Sharkey as “a true leader among torts scholars” who has developed a “distinctive and coherent account of tort law as primarily concerned with harm reduction.”
Sharkey’s contributions have also earned recognition from the American Bar Association, which awarded her the 2023 Robert M. McKay Law Professor Award, and from the John Simon Guggenheim Foundation, where she was named a Fellow for the 2011–12 academic year.