Robert S. Summers

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Robert Samuel Summers is the current William G. McRoberts Research Professor in the Administration of the Law at the Cornell Law School in Ithaca, NY.

Biography

Robert Summers was born in Halfway, Oregon in 1933, attended the University of Oregon and Harvard Law School. Professor Summers has won international acclaim for his work in contracts, commercial law, and jurisprudence and legal theory. Since he came to Cornell Law School from the University of Oregon School of Law in 1969, Professor Summers has authored and coauthored multiple works on contracts, commercial law, jurisprudence and legal theory. His treatise on the Uniform Commercial Code, coauthored with Professor James J. White, is the most widely cited on the subject. His other influential works include texts on legal realism, form and substance in the law, and on statutory interpretation. Professor Summers has served as official advisor both to the Drafting Commission for the Russian Civil Code and to the Drafting Commission for the Egyptian Civil Code, and he lectures annually on jurisprudence and legal theory in Britain, Scandinavia, and Europe. He currently teaches contracts and American legal theory, and has recently completed a book on the varieties of legal form and their importance in law, Form and Function in a Legal System: A General Study, to be published by Cambridge University Press.

Education

• LL.B., Harvard University, 1959
• B.S., University of Oregon, 1955
• LL.D., honoris causa, University of Gottingen, 1994
• LL.D., honoris causa, University of Helsinki, 1990

References

Cornell Law School Faculty Bio