His parents were divorced in 1950 and Edwards and his two sisters, Verne Debourg and Pamela Matthews, were raised by their mother.

When his mother returned, the family moved to Long Island, where Edwards attended Uniondale High School and was president of the first graduating class.

[9] Despite his very strong academic record in law school, Edwards had difficulty finding a job in the legal profession because he was black.

[10] It was only after Professor Russell Smith, his mentor at Michigan, interceded on his behalf that he was hired at Seyfarth, Shaw, Fairweather & Geraldson.

[12] In 1970, Edwards joined the faculty of the University of Michigan Law School and became the first African American to teach there.

[17] He resigned his position with Amtrak when he was appointed to the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit in 1980.

[18] To address this situation, the President established merit selection panels to identify and recommend highly qualified female and minority attorneys for appointment to the federal bench.

[19] In 1979, the judicial selection panel for the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit sent nine names to then-Attorney General Griffin Bell.

From that list, President Carter nominated Patricia Wald,[20] Abner Mikva,[21] and Edwards to serve on the court.

[23] Since 1980, Edwards has taught at a number of law schools, including Duke, Georgetown, Harvard, Pennsylvania, and Michigan.

[1] In 2010, he was the C.V. Starr Distinguished Jurist in Residence at the Peking University School of Transnational Law, Shenzhen, China.

"[26] Three other articles, "Collegial Decision Making in the U.S. Courts of Appeals" (July 2017);[27] Edwards & Livermore, "The Pitfalls of Empirical Studies That Attempt to Understand the Factors Affecting Appellate Decisionmaking", 58 Duke L.J.1895 (2009); and "The Effects of Collegiality on Judicial Decision Making", 151 U. Pa. L. Rev.

[28] In 2017, he amplified some of his thoughts on racial bias in a paper entitled “Reflections on Racial Stigmas and Stereotyping.”[29] In 2006, Edwards was appointed by the United States National Research Council at the National Academy of Sciences to serve as co-chair of the Committee on Identifying the Needs of the Forensic Science Community.

[28] On February 18, 2009, the Committee published a widely hailed study reporting serious deficiencies in the nation's forensic science system and calling for major reforms and new research.

[34] From 2009 to 2018, Edwards wrote a number of papers and spoke out regularly in favor of reform in the forensic science community.

The award honors those who support efforts to reform the criminal justice system and prevent wrongful convictions.

[1] In 2004, Edwards received the Robert J. Kutak Award, presented by the American Bar Association Section of Legal Education and Admission to the Bar "to a person who meets the highest standards of professional responsibility and demonstrates substantial achievement toward increased understanding between legal education and the active practice of law.