The University of Texas at Austin   School of Law

Law School Dean Receives Prestigious ABA Award for
Outstanding Contributions to Tort and Insurance Law

William Powers accepts McKay award at ABA annual convention in San Francisco

Dean Powers

AUSTIN, Texas—William C. Powers Jr., dean of The University of Texas School of Law, has received the prestigious Robert B. McKay Law Professor Award from the Tort and Insurance Practice Section of the American Bar Association.

Dean Powers—one of the nation’s leading authorities on torts and products liability—accepted the award at luncheon on Sunday, Aug. 17, during the ABA’s annual convention in San Francisco. He is the 17th recipient of the award since it was first established in 1988. The McKay Award recognizes a commitment to the advancement of justice, scholarship and the legal profession as demonstrated by outstanding contributions to the fields of tort and insurance law.

Reflecting UT's long-standing dominance in the field of tort law, Dean Powers is the fifth UT Law faculty or alumnus to receive this prestigious award. The other faculty members are the late Charles Alan Wright, the 8th recipient, and the late Dean W. Page Keeton ’31, who was one of the first recipients of the award in 1988. The alumni are Keeton ’31, Judge Robert E. Keeton ’41 (formerly with Harvard Law School), and Roger C. Henderson ’65 of the University of Arizona College of Law.

Other past winners include Judge Richard A. Posner of the University of Chicago Law School, Robert L. Rabin of Stanford Law School and Jeffrey O'Connell of the University of Virginia School of Law.

Powers currently holds the John Jeffers Research Chair in Law and the Hines H. Baker and Thelma Kelley Baker Chair in Law at The University of Texas at Austin, where he teaches torts, products liability, jurisprudence, legal process, civil procedure, and contracts. He is a member of the Academy of Distinguished Teachers and holds the title of University Distinguished Teaching Professor. Powers was named as the Law School’s 12th Dean on May 22, 2000.

In addition, Powers is author of, among others, Cases and Materials in Products Liability (Third Edition) (with Fischer, Green, and Sanders) (West Publishing Co. 2002); Cases and Materials in Torts (West 2nd ed. 1998) (with Robertson, Anderson, and Wellborn); and Texas Products Liability Law (2nd ed.) (1992). He is a member of the American Law Institute, where he was Co-Reporter for the Restatement (Third) of Torts: Apportionment of Liability, and currently is a Co-Reporter for the Restatement (Third) of Torts: Liability for Physical Harm.