William Powers Jr.

William Powers is the Joseph D. Jamail Centennial Chair in Law and University Distinguished Teaching Professor at the University of Texas, Austin. Powers was president of the University of Texas at Austin from 2006 to 2015. He is also a University Distinguished Teaching Professor and holds the Hines H. Baker and Thelma Kelley Baker Chair in Law at the School of Law, where he served as Dean from 2000-2005. Other University appointments have been with the Southern Methodist University School of Law, the University of Michigan School of Law, and the University of Washington School of Law.

He 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 (Third Edition) (with Robertson, Anderson, and Wellborn) (West Publishing Co. 2004), and Texas Products Liability Law (Second Edition 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 Co-Reporter for the Restatement (Third) of Torts: Liability for Physical Harm. He served as Chair of the Special Investigation Committee, Enron Corp., which in 2002 produced the "Powers Report."

He received his B.A. (Chemistry) from the University of California at Berkeley in 1967, and his J.D., magna cum laude, from the Harvard Law School in 1973. From 1973 to 1974 he was law clerk to Judge Eugene Wright, United States Court of Appeals (Ninth Circuit).