About

Mark Edwin Burge is a Professor of Law at Texas A&M University School of Law. He holds a J.D. with honors from The University of Texas School of Law, where he served as Associate Editor of the Texas Law Review, and a B.A. in history from the University of Houston, graduating summa cum laude with honors in his major. His professional experience includes eight years in private practice, primarily in business and commercial litigation, with significant involvement in representing financial institutions and handling complex litigation. This practical background has fueled his ongoing interest in contract and commercial law, focusing on both dispute avoidance and effective dispute resolution. Since joining academia, Burge has held various positions at Texas A&M University School of Law, including Associate Professor of Law from 2013 to 2017, Director of San Antonio Programs from 2017 to 2020, and Professor of Law from 2017 onward. His research interests center on the future of law practice and legal pedagogy, especially in the context of technological advancements such as artificial intelligence. Burge emphasizes the importance of lawyers developing skills that add value beyond automation, preparing students to adapt to and leverage technological changes in legal practice. Outside of his professional pursuits, he is passionate about family and enjoys hobbies such as playing video games, particularly Nintendo titles, which he shares with his children.

Research topics

• Sociology
• Political Science
• Law
• Psychology

Selected publications

• Inexcusable? Building An Artificial Intelligence Microexpert On Contract Excuse Doctrine

  SSRN Electronic Journal · 2026-01-01

  preprintOpen access1st authorCorresponding
  PublisherDOI

• Legal Analysis: A Template To Analyze and Brief Any Legal Issue

  SSRN Electronic Journal · 2025-01-01

  preprintOpen access
  PublisherDOI

• Legal Literacy and Communication Skills: Working with Law and Lawyers, Chapters 1 and 2

  SSRN Electronic Journal · 2024

  Senior authorCorresponding
  • Sociology
  • Political Science
  • Law
  PublisherDOI

• Repealing the Statute of Wizarding Secrecy in Legal Education

  2020 · 1 citations

  1st authorCorresponding
  • Political Science
  • Sociology
  • Law

  In the fictional Harry Potter universe, J.K. Rowling has fashioned a parallel world based on our own, but with the fundamental difference of a separate magical society grafted onto it. In Rowling’s fictional version, the magical population lives among the non-magical Muggle population, but we Muggles are largely unaware of them. This secrecy is by elaborate design and was brought about by centuries-long hostility toward wizards by the non-magical majority. But what if secrecy is precisely the wrong approach? What if widespread wizard-Muggle collaboration were precisely the thing needed to address the enormous and pressing problems of the day?The secrecy and exclusivity of the wizarding world, when combined with the similarities between Harry Potter-style magic and American law, make Rowling’s world a useful cautionary tale for legal education. This essay argues that law schools should reject their largely Hogwarts-style approach to the dissemination of legal knowledge in favor of increased educational paths appropriate to a liberal republican democracy invested in the rule of law. A modest but positive step in that direction is the establishment by law schools of legal master’s degree programs aimed at non-lawyer professionals. In a societal sense, these programs are a positive step in the direction of repealing the “statute of wizarding secrecy” that has long and implicitly accompanied legal education.

  Publisher

• Access to Law or Access to Lawyers? Master's Programs in the Public Educational Mission of Law Schools

  University of Miami law review · 2019-01-01 · 1 citations

  articleOpen access1st authorCorresponding

  The general decline in juris doctor (“J.D.”) law school applicants and enrollment over the last decade has coincided with the rise of a new breed of law degree. Whether known as master of jurisprudence, juris master, master of legal studies, or other names, these graduate degrees all have a target audience in common: adult professionals who neither are nor seek to become practicing attorneys. Inside legal academia and among the practicing bar, these degrees have been accompanied by expressed concerns that they detract from the traditional core public mission of law schools—educating lawyers. This Article argues that non-lawyer master’s programs are not a distraction from the public mission of law schools, nor are they a necessary evil foisted upon legal education by economic trends. Rather, such degrees reflect a paradigm shift that law schools and attorneys should embrace rather than resist: a move away from law being accessed primarily through a licensed elite and toward a greater role for autonomy in public engagement with the legal system. The law school function of serving the public goes well beyond training future lawyers or even marshalling them in the service of access to justice. The expanded legal education vision advocated here includes those functions, but as part of a more encompassing mission. Law schools should aim to ensure access to law rather than simply access to lawyers. This Article then sets forth foundational frameworks for such programs to succeed at their goals, both at the programmatic level and at the course-design level.

  PublisherOA PDF

• Legal Literacy and Communication Skills: Working with Law and Lawyers (Chapter 1)

  2019-11-22

  articleSenior author

  Legal Literacy and Communication Skills: Working with Law and Lawyers is a first-of-its-kind text, designed expressly for students in Juris Master, Master of Jurisprudence, and Master of Legal Studies programs. This book empowers students coming from fields such as risk management, regulatory compliance, human resources, and contract management—but whose professional background is outside of law. They will obtain a foundational understanding of the U.S. legal system, along with insight into what lawyers do. Legal Literacy and Communication Skills covers key concepts, including: * Understanding the roles of legislatures, agencies, and courts * Recognizing and using basic legal vocabulary in context * Reading a variety of legal documents efficiently and effectively * Writing law-related reports and correspondence * Reading and understanding the function of primary sources of law, including statutes, regulations, and cases * Understanding the basic elements of a contract and participating in contracting processes * Recognizing and avoiding the unauthorized practice of law. Students will develop skills to help them find and use legal information for themselves or as part of a collaborative project. The text includes exercises built around an ongoing case study and helpful “Traditions and Trends” commentary, which puts today’s legal landscape into a broader context. This excerpt includes the table of contents for the entire book, along with Chapter 1, Foundations of Legal Literacy. The opening chapter describes the broad outline of the book, including its pedagogical and theoretical framework for bringing legal analysis and skills education to an audience that, for many law schools, is a new and growing piece of their educational mission of reaching professionals in fields adjacent to the traditional legal profession.

• Legal Literacy and Communication Skills: Working with Law and Lawyers

  eYLS (Yale Law School) · 2019-12-30 · 2 citations

  bookSenior author

  Legal Literacy and Communication Skills: Working with Law and Lawyers is a first-of-its-kind text, designed expressly for students in Juris Master, Master of Jurisprudence, and Master of Legal Studies programs. This concise paperback empowers students whose professional background is outside of law with a foundational understanding of the U.S. legal system and insight into what lawyers do. The second edition offers a new chapter on understanding litigation documents and dockets, providing students with the tools to find and follow civil lawsuits relevant to their interests. The second edition also both expands and streamlines its approach to regulations and administrative adjudication. Developments in generative artificial intelligence are also expanded to foster critical exploration of AI in the legal field. Legal Literacy and Communication Skills covers key concepts, including: Understanding the roles of legislatures, agencies, and courts; Recognizing and using basic legal vocabulary in context; Reading a variety of legal documents efficiently and effectively; Writing law-related reports and correspondence; Reading and understanding the function of primary sources of law, including statutes, regulations, and cases; Understanding the basic elements of a contract and participating in contracting processes; Understanding the general course and process of litigation and discovery from a client's perspective; and Recognizing and avoiding the unauthorized practice of law. Students will develop skills to help them find and use legal information for themselves or as part of a collaborative project with attorneys. The text includes exercises built around an ongoing case study and contains helpful "Traditions and Trends" commentary, which puts today's legal landscape into a broader context.

  Publisher

• American Contract Law for a Global Age

  eYLS (Yale Law School) · 2017-01-01

  articleOpen accessSenior author

  American Contract Law for a Global Age by Franklin G. Snyder and Mark Edwin Burge of Texas A&M University School of Law is a casebook designed primarily for the first-year Contracts course as it is taught in American law schools, but is configured so as to be usable either as a primary text or a supplement in any upper-level U.S. or foreign class that seeks to introduce American contract law to students.

  Publisher

• Applying the Cayman Approach to Virtual Currency: A Dispruptive Opportunity Waiting to Happen

  2017-04-01

  article1st authorCorresponding

  The reputational problems of virtual currencies are variants of the problems faced by business finance vehicles that the Cayman Islands has been successfully overcoming by its firm but nimble approach to regulation. Creativity in the regulatory and governance sphere is precisely the missing ingredient that can enable virtual currency to live up to its disruptive but beneficial potential.

• American Contract Law for a Global Age: Chapters 1 and 2

  2017-12-01

  articleSenior author

  American Contract Law for a Global Age by Franklin G. Snyder and Mark Edwin Burge of Texas A&M University School of Law is a casebook designed primarily for the first-year Contracts course as it is taught in American law schools, but is configured so as to be usable either as a primary text or a supplement in any upper-level United States or non-U.S. class that seeks to introduce American contract law to students. This excerpt contains the first six units (two chapters) of the 28-unit complete text. As an eLangdell text published by CALI, it offers maximum flexibility for students to read either in hard copy or electronic format on most electronic devices. Why “American” Contract Law? Nearly all American contract law texts focus on U.S. law. This volume simply makes that focus explicit. Modern American lawyers face an increasingly global world, and the book makes it clear that American law is not the only important commercial law regime in the world. But much of the value that the cosmopolitan and transnational American-trained lawyer brings to the table is an understanding of the contract law of the United States. To this end, the venerable English cases that exemplify common law doctrine are here presented not in their hoary 19th century settings, but in the 21st century forms that students can intuitively grasp. Convenient Unit Structure. An important feature of this book is that it is divided into twenty-eight units (spread among nine chapters), each of which is structured in the same order: (1) The “Focus of This Unit” section provides background information and suggestions about what students might want to watch out for with respect to the materials that follow. (2) The “Cases and Materials” section includes the key materials — cases, statutes, and (occasionally) secondary materials — that the students will study. This section also includes pointed “Review Questions” after each case designed to help students figure out the relevance of what they just read. (3) Finally, the “Problems” section is where (after the introductory units) students are given at least three substantial problems, the answers to which (or arguments to be made about each) can be found in the Cases and Materials. Starting with a Contract. A common complaint among contracts professors (and students) is the degree to which the Contracts class — the doctrinal cornerstone of transactional law practice — unduly emphasizes litigation. This book seeks to ameliorate this problem from the very beginning by starting not with a case, but with a contract itself. Adapting an approach pioneered and advocated by Carol Sanger, the first two units of this book deal with a single contract: the surrogacy agreement between William Stern and Mary Beth and Richard Whitehead that formed the basis of New Jersey courts’ In re Baby M opinions both upholding and striking down the contract. The opinions touch on nearly every issue that students will see in upcoming chapters: capacity, consideration, formation, defenses, public policy, and remedies. This book goes one step ahead of the opinions, however, by starting with the contract itself, emphasizing the parties’ agreement and forward-thinking transactional perspectives rather than merely a post-mortem on what went wrong. Worldwide Availability. While the eLangdell project in general, and this book in particular, have been primarily designed for classes taught in law schools in the United States, the authors hope that these materials can and will be used globally. Given the increasing import of international business and the ongoing importance of the United States as a trading partner, institutions outside the U.S. may find a basic survey course in American contract law to be useful, and this text is both economical and suitable for such use.

Frequent coauthors

• Jennifer Murphy Romig

  3 shared

• Franklin G. Snyder

  Texas A&M University School of Law

  2 shared

• Jason Korosec

  1 shared

• David P. Stewart

  1 shared