About Robert H. Jerry, II

Robert H. Jerry, II is the Floyd R. Gibson Missouri Endowed Professor of Law-Emeritus at the School of Law. From 1998 to 2003, he held the Floyd R. Gibson Missouri Endowed Professorship at the School of Law. From 2003 to 2014, he served as dean of the University of Florida Levin College of Law, where he also held the Levin Mabie and Levin Professorship (through 2015). He returned to MU Law as the Isidor Loeb Professor of Law in 2015, a position he held until his retirement on September 1, 2019 as the Gibson Missouri Endowed Professor-Emeritus.

Prior to his academic appointments at MU Law and UF Law, he held the Herbert Herff Chair of Excellence at the University of Memphis from 1994 to 1998, and he was a professor of law at the University of Kansas from 1981 to 1994, where he also served as dean from 1989 to 1994. He practiced law in Indianapolis from 1978 to 1981 with the firm of Barnes, Hickam, Pantzer & Boyd (now Barnes & Thornburg), and he clerked for Judge George E. MacKinnon in the United States Circuit Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit during the 1977-78 term. He received his JD from the University of Michigan Law School, where he was a member of the Michigan Law Review, and his undergraduate degree from Indiana State University.

His research and teaching specialty is insurance law, and he is the author of numerous books, book chapters, articles, and essays in this field, including the book Advanced Introduction to Insurance Law published in 2023 and the treatise Understanding Insurance Law, which will be published in its seventh edition in 2025. He has also written and presented in the field of leadership studies, and his book A Daily Reader for 1Ls will be published by West in late 2024. He is an elected member of the American Law Institute, a Fellow of the American Bar Foundation, and past chair of the Insurance Law Section of the Association of American Law Schools. His committee and commission activities include service for the American Bar Association, the Association of American Law Schools, the National Conference of Commissioners of Uniform State Laws, the Florida Bar and the Supreme Court of the State of Florida, and the American Law Institute, as well as numerous organizations in communities where he has lived.

He has also engaged in numerous service activities, including chairing the Faculty Executive Committee at the University of Kansas in 1988-1989 and election to the Faculty Executive Committee at the University of Missouri in 2000-2001. In 2016, he chaired the University’s Ad Hoc Joint Committee on Protests, Public Spaces, Free Speech, and the Press. In February 2020, he received the Robert B. McKay Law Professor Award presented annually by the Tort, Trial Practice, and Insurance Section of the American Bar Association.

Areas of Expertise

• Contracts
• Dispute Resolution (Including Insurance Claims Processing)
• Free Speech and Expression on College Campuses
• Insurance Law and Regulation (Including Health Insurance)
• Lawyering Skills (Including Leadership and Professionalism)
• Legal Education and Law Schools

Educational Background

• BS, magna cum laude, Indiana State University, '74
• JD, cum laude, University of Michigan Law School, '77