NCSC Selects Robert L. Haig for Warren E. Burger Society

Induction Recognizes Business Courts Leadership

The Warren E. Burger Society honors individuals who have volunteered their time, talent, and support to the National Center in exceptional ways. It is named for the former Chief Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court who helped found the NCSC in 1971.

Haig’s practice includes commercial, products liability, and other types of civil litigation in state and federal trial and appellate courts. He has worked with the NCSC for many years to expand the use of business courts for resolution of business disputes. Haig co-chaired the Commercial Courts Task Force that New York’s Chief Judge appointed to create and refine the Commercial Division of the New York State Supreme Court. He also has been active in efforts to develop business courts in many other states and countries. Haig has written and lectured extensively on numerous litigation topics. He is the editor-in-chief of two multi-volume treatises on business and commercial litigation in federal and New York State courts.

In addition to his work before the bench, Haig also has written and lectured extensively on litigation topics. He is a member of the American Bar Association’s House of Delegates, a member of the American Law Institute, and a Life Fellow of both the American Bar and New York Bar foundations. Haig received his juris doctor from Harvard Law School and his bachelor’s from Yale University.

Burger Society inductees are selected by a committee chaired by Texas attorney Charles M. Noteboom, who commissioned a portrait of Chief Justice Burger that hangs in the National Center’s headquarters in Williamsburg, Va. Each inductee receives a limited edition of that portrait, which is signed and numbered by the artist, Fran Di Giacomo.

There are 1,986 prints of the portrait, the first two of which are owned by the Chief Justice’s children and the last of which was owned by the late U.S. Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist, who took his oath from the retiring Chief Justice Burger in 1986.

The National Center for State Courts, headquartered in Williamsburg, Va., is a nonprofit court reform organization dedicated to improving the administration of justice by providing leadership and service to the state courts. Founded in 1971 by the Conference of Chief Justices and Chief Justice of the United States Warren E. Burger, NCSC provides education, training, technology, management, and research services to the nation’s state courts.