Ask Bernie Burk, law professor, what he does, and the answer starts with the classroom. Across schools including the University of North Carolina, Penn State Law, Seattle University, Memphis, Campbell University, and Arkansas at Little Rock, he has taught the courses that form the backbone of a legal education. Civil Procedure, Contracts, Remedies, Conflicts of Laws, and Professional Responsibility have all been part of his rotation.
That range is unusual. Many professors settle into one or two subjects and stay there. Bernie Burk has moved across the core curriculum, which gives his students something valuable: a teacher who can show how the pieces of law fit together rather than treating each course as a sealed box.
His teaching is shaped by real practice. Before joining the academy, Bernie Burk worked as a litigator, which means his classroom examples come from cases and clients rather than only from casebooks. When he explains why a procedural deadline matters or how a conflict of interest can derail a representation, he is drawing on the experience of having lived those moments.
He has also helped build programs, not just teach within them. At Arkansas at Little Rock, Bernie Burk directed the Lawyering Skills Program, a mandatory second-year course that trains students in the practical work of being a lawyer. That job meant preparing the syllabus, delivering weekly lectures on trial advocacy, and supervising a large group of adjunct instructors. He has taught advanced litigation skills and coached for-credit mock trial as well.
Professional Responsibility holds a special place in his teaching. Bernie Burk approaches ethics as a working skill rather than a list of prohibitions. His students learn to recognize a problem early, think it through, and act before a small issue becomes a career-ending one. That practical framing comes directly from his own work chairing a law firm’s professional responsibility function.
His commitment to teaching extends beyond his own students. Bernie Burk has worked on faculty committees focused on teacher development, mentoring, and scholarship, and he has presented at conferences on how to teach effectively when students arrive less prepared and resources are tighter than before.
For prospective students weighing where to study, the presence of a teacher like Bernie Burk signals something. It signals a faculty member who has practiced law, who can teach across the curriculum, who takes ethics seriously, and who works to make his courses better year after year.