Surrounded by faculty colleagues and devoted students, UCLA School of Law professor David Marcus was honored on April 8 at an event where he received the Rutter Award for Excellence in Teaching, the law school’s highest accolade for work in the classroom.

Led by Dean Michael Waterstone – who recounted Marcus’s uncommon ability to make the nuances of his Civil Procedure and Federal Courts courses exceedingly accessible to students, as well as the inspiration that he bestows on them as future practicing attorneys – attendees celebrated Marcus for his humor, kindness, dependability, and thoughtfulness.

“He is known as a mentor, scholar, teacher, and important institutional citizen,” Waterstone said of Marcus, with whom he worked when Marcus was the law school’s vice dean for curricular and academic affairs. “I constantly ask him for advice. At several hard points, I have asked him to be the last voice in the room or the last look on something. And I’m certainly grateful for his wisdom, his judgment, his temperament, and how much he cares about our community.”

Marcus is an authority in civil procedure, access to justice, federal courts, complex litigation, and legal history. He joined the UCLA Law faculty in 2018, alongside his wife, Nina Rabin, who directs the law school’s clinical education program and attended the event. Waterstone noted that it was not the first teaching award that Marcus had won: During his previous tenure at the University of Arizona’s law school, Marcus earned repeated selection as Professor of the Year.

“All of us get to see your relationship with your students, so many of whom are here today,” Waterstone said to Marcus. “We know that they have come to depend on you not only as a terrific teacher but as a trusted guide on their journey to becoming lawyers and leaders.”

Marcus is the 49th member of the UCLA Law faculty to win the Rutter Award, which was founded in 1979 by renowned legal publisher William Rutter and is presented each year to teachers at five top California law schools. The event featured other speakers, including Rutter’s son UCLA Law alumnus Paul Rutter ’78, a member of the law school’s board of advisors and real estate lawyer at Cozen O’Connor.

Marcus delivered a brief and heartfelt lecture in which he talked about the power of teaching and credited his colleagues for boosting him and his classroom work to enviable heights. Among other words of praise, he acknowledged that Rabin herself had previously won the UCLA Distinguished Teaching Award, the entire university’s highest honor for classroom excellence.

He continued to center his remarks on a quote that he attributed to the basketball player Julius “Dr. J” Erving: “Being a professional is doing the things you love to do on the days you don’t feel like doing them.” And he noted that his mother, an English teacher, would positively refer to people as “a real pro” – a status to which he thereafter aspired throughout his career.

“I’m doing what I love, and there’s nothing I’d rather do than teach. Every one of the superb teachers in this room knows exactly that same feeling,” he said. “Professionalism and responsibility are intertwined, but so are professionalism and privilege: the privilege of getting to do what you love to do.”

For that, he offered sincere thanks to his students. “There’s a simple reason why teaching is such a privilege,” he said. “My students are exceptional. They are hardworking, they’re so smart, they’re good humored, they’re patient, they’re wise, they’re tolerant. They come to UCLA with a remarkable array of life experiences that inform what they have to say in so many interesting ways. Some of them have lived the law in ways that I can only imagine. Every day, in the classroom, I get my legal education anew.”

That, he said, is what motivates him most. “The results are waves of energy, and all I have to do is ride them,” he said. “When I walk out of the building at the end of the day, onto our beautiful campus, in the late afternoon Los Angeles sunlight, I always think, Today I got to do what I love to do. Thank you to my students for giving me that privilege.”