Edmund O. Belsheim

Edmund O. Belsheim taught at Lewis & Clark Law School from 1972 -1994, after retiring from the Univerity of Nebraska. He was the first professor to be awarded the Leo Levenson Award for Excellence in Teaching and went on to win the award three more times in 1982, 1990, and 1992.

During his remarkable career as a law professor, Edmund O. Belsheim taught nearly every basic course in the curriculum. He was a common-law lawyer in the Holmes tradition and more. Though educated when the common law dominated the curriculum, Ed practiced and taught through the New Deal, the civil rights movement, the Great Society, the Reagan years, and nearly to the end of the 20th Century. Along the way he brought the growing wisdom of age to his teaching about law and a legal system that little resembled what he had studied as a youth. He also brought the timeless virtues of compassion, friendship, and an expectation of excellence.