Robert Peterson

Santa Clara University School of Law Professor

Should people who live in upscale urban neighborhoods enjoy lower auto insurance rates if that means higher rates for their poorer rural neighbors? If global warming sends a hurricane to New York and leaves in its wake the damage of ten Katrinas, is private insurance adequate to the task? How can we make auto insurance affordable and available to those with marginal incomes?

These are among the issues Santa Clara Law professor Robert Peterson confronts as a two-term member (eight years in all), and now the chair, of the Standing Committee on Insurance Law of the state bar. Made up of lawyers from the insurance industry, the Department of Insurance, and Peterson (the only academic), the committee meets monthly to discuss laws and regulations relating to insurance. It meets with insurance regulators, candidates for insurance commissioner, and legislators. It publishes updates on insurance law on its Web site and in the state bar’s Business Law News, it presents educational programs, and it sometimes proposes legislation.

Peterson, who directs Santa Clara Law’s nascent Institute of Insurance Law, says that insurance is one of the most important social issues we face. "Everything we do in life, and even death has something to do with insurance. You can’t drive a car, buy a house, or do business without insurance," he says. "You can seldom die—at least with dignity—without insurance."

But at the academic level, we pay scant attention to it, says Peterson, even though a good number of Santa Clara Law graduates end up in insurance law. "We should teach, research, and publish much more in this area," he says.

Hammond, being a professor, chose a different approach. "My job as a professor is to enable students to go out and act. I used this same model in the public arena," he explains. First, the two organizations drew a panel from a wide cross-section of Silicon Valley all the way to Gilroy. Then, they educated the panel on the issues involved and allowed them to draw conclusions about what the policies should be. Finally, the panel was able to ask questions of the experts, including the ISPs who would be providing the services.

Moreover, says Peterson, "There is a large social interest in insurance." For example, how regulators set rates for auto insurance has deep political and social implications. It is largely a zero sum game. Lower rates for one group means higher rates for another. When is this sensible public policy, and when is it unreasonable discrimination?

Peterson’s service on the committee gives him an insider’s look into what the hot issues in insurance law are, enabling him to present his students with a perspective far deeper than how to read a policy.

Robert Cullen, teacher of leadership for lawyers courses at SCU, says "the essence of leadership is credibility, which means not only maintaining an interest in your field, but being a part of the ‘think tanks’ or groups of experts who influence the field and influence our legal institutions from law schools to CEB courses to the courts and our legislative bodies." These committees, says Cullen, "exist to maintain a high level of expertise in the practice and in the profession as a whole" and are therefore very valuable in terms of maintaining high standards and a continued commitment to excellence in the specific area of practice and beyond.

Peterson, who studied at San Diego State, Stanford (J.D.) and Oxford, took over chairmanship of the committee in 2006 from Barry Leigh Weissman, a Santa Clara Law alumnus.

Robert Peterson's faculty webpage