Noah Coco '26
Staff Editor
Astute 1Ls may have noticed one particular name repeated like a constant refrain in the notes and footnotes of their Torts casebook. Some may even see that same name printed on the cover of their own. That name is Kenneth Abraham. A “luminary in the field” of torts according to one of his colleagues, Professor Charles Barzun ’05, this titan of tort law walks among us on our hallowed Law School grounds. In recognition for his extraordinary contributions to the field, he was recently awarded the 2024 Prosser Award from the Association of American Law Schools (AALS) Section on Torts and Compensation Systems. The Prosser Prize is the AALS’ highest award in the field of torts.
Picutred: Professor Kenneth Abraham
Photo Credit: UVA Law
Professor Abraham will be joining a long list of esteemed torts scholars, including former Judge Richard Posner of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit and Judge Guido Calabresi of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, the latter of whom Abraham actually studied under while attending Yale Law School. A review of Professor Abraham’s career leaves no mystery as to why he was selected as a recipient of the 2024 Prosser Award. Throughout his career he has authored over seventy law review articles and six books, and his casebook Insurance Law and Regulation has been a staple among law school insurance law courses. His contributions to the field of insurance law have been particularly influential since the publication of his first book in 1986, “Distributing Risk: Insurance, Legal Theory, and Public Policy.”
Professor Abraham is no stranger to awards for his scholarship and teaching prowess. He was previously awarded the All-University of Virginia Outstanding Teacher Award, the Distinguished Faculty Achievement Certificate from the State Council of Higher Education for Virginia, the American Bar Association's Robert B. McKay Law Professor Award, and he was first among all law professors to be elected an Honorary Fellow of the American College of Coverage Counsel.
It might be expected that such a prominent torts dignitary’s first words as an infant were “duty, breach, cause, and harm,” but Abraham’s entry into the field was not preordained. He enrolled at Yale Law School in the 1960s in an atmosphere with “politics and public policy in the air,” said Abraham. While in law school, he took a year off to be on active duty with the US Army Reserve, a decision he made in order to avoid being drafted into the Vietnam War, and I am sure to also avoid a number of corollary tortious acts. Following his graduation from Yale Law School in 1971, Abraham joined a two-person law firm in Hackensack, New Jersey, that focused on general civil practice. He spent his time at the firm drafting wills, facilitating real estate transactions, and handling small personal injury cases, a far-cry from the heights of torts fame he would later achieve.
Torts was, in fact, Abraham’s favorite 1L doctrinal class in law school, but it was not until his first Visiting Assistant Professor position at Case Western Reserve Law School that his foray into torts scholarship began. Even then, it was not necessarily because of any innate passion for elucidating liability, but simply because the law school was in need of a torts professor. After teaching at Case Western Reserve Law School and subsequently at the University of Maryland School of Law for several years, Abraham accepted a teaching position at UVA Law in 1984. And now, this year marks his thirty-ninth year on faculty at the Law School.
In addition to his contributions to the fields of torts and insurance law at large, he has equally established his impact on the Law School grounds through his interactions with faculty and students. Professor Barzun reflected on the past fifteen years teaching torts alongside Abraham at the Law School and the innumerous questions that Abraham has provided insight into over this period. “What I always love about Ken’s answers,” Barzun said, “is that he would not only tell me what I could say or how to think about the problem, but he would often reassure me that it was okay if I did not know the exact answer.” Professor Barzun continued, “instead of dwelling on it, he’d encourage me to step back and look at the big picture in order to see the deeper themes at work in the doctrine.”
Abraham continues to teach torts to 1Ls, guiding them from their first day of wondering “What’s a tort?” (I cannot imagine that I was the only one) until (hopefully) mastering the rituals of discerning duty, breach, cause, and harm. Ashley Ramsay ’26 is currently taking his 1L torts class and similarly reflected on Abraham’s ability to “challenge the class to think beyond how the Court came to its conclusion in a case and instead, push us to think critically about how the driving principles and philosophy of tort law influences the ultimate holding.”
The next time you pass Professor Abraham in the hallways, remember to congratulate him on the award, ask whether res ipsa loquitur is a useful construct, or give him a recommendation for a great mystery novel, which I hear is one of his pastimes.
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cmz4bx@virginia.edu