University of Missouri-Kansas City School of Law

The urban public law school with a small liberal arts feel

Robert Popper Dean and Professor Emeritus of Law; B.A. (University of Wisconsin); LL.B. (Harvard University); LL.M. (New York University) email After Law School Professor Popper spent 2 years with the U.S. Army guarding the gold at Fort Knox, Kentucky. He returned to New York City, his hometown, to practice law. He joined the UMKC law faculty in 1969 from private practice with a firm in New York City. Before his association with the firm, he was an assistant district attorney for New York County, and prior to that, a defense attorney in criminal cases in the office of the N.Y.C. Legal Aid Society. He became interim dean in 1983 and was appointed dean in April 1984, serving until August 31, 1993. He resigned his full-time faculty status at the end of the 1996 academic year and was awarded his title as Professor and Dean Emeritus. He taught in the criminal law, criminal procedure and constitutional law areas. He has also taught International Human Rights, Post-Conviction Remedies, Professional Responsibility, Law and Mental Illness, and various criminal, juvenile and prisoners' rights clinics. He is the author of "Post Conviction Remedies in a Nutshell" (West, 1978) and has published articles on various subjects. He has been active as a writer and lecturer for the Missouri and Kansas Bars, has served on the board of directors of the Missouri Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers, and as a member of the Missouri Institute for Justice. He has been a member of various committees and groups within the Missouri Bar. In 1982 he was given the University of Kansas City Board of Trustees Faculty Fellowship Award, and in 1991 was named the Civil Libertarian of the Year by the ACLU of Western Missouri and Kansas. Professor Popper is a fellow of the American Bar Foundation and is listed in "Who's Who in America." The class of 1997 elected him the 1996 Outstanding Professor at UMKC School of Law. He was Project Director on a 1998 feasibility study to prohibit drug use in Blue Springs Missouri. Later, he represented plaintiffs in a First Amendment based civil rights lawsuit, successfully pressing their claims in the United States District Court in Kansas City and in the U. S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit.