Robert Rains

Professor of Law, Emeritus    rer10@psu.edu Education: J.D., Harvard Law School B.A., Michigan State University

List of Publications

About Rains

A long-serving faculty member (1983-2013), Professor Rains is one of the most widely published and traveled faculty members of our Law School. In addition to teaching academic courses in Family, Disability, and Juvenile Law, Professor Rains supervised students in practice in both the Family Law Clinic and the Disability Law Clinic, which he founded in 1985. For many years, he also taught a summer course in Florence, Italy, on Comparative and International Family Law.

A long-time member of the Board of the National Organization of Social Security Claimants’ Representatives (NOSSCR), he authored several amicus briefs to the United States Supreme Court on behalf of that organization. An active member of the International Society of Family Law, he has made presentations at their conferences in Australia, England, Utah, and, in 2014, Israel. He speaks frequently at meetings of the practicing bar, as well as at academic conferences. On behalf of the Journal of Comparative Law (UK), he organized a workshop in July 2014 in London on the Hague Convention on the Civil Aspects of International Child Abduction.   In the fall of 2014, in addition to making CLE presentations at two county bar associations, he addressed the “Symposium on The Future of Families and of Family Law” at the J. Reuben Clark Law School, Brigham Young University. Since January 2016, Professor Rains has been the editor of the Pennsylvania Bar Association Quarterly, the scholarly journal of the PBA.

Professor Rains is a legal versifier and fabulist whose law verses have appeared in numerous academic and professional journals. He is the author of True Tales of Trying Times: Legal Fables for Today (2007). Rains’ volunteer community activities include serving on the Cumberland County Youth Aid Panels, a diversionary program for juveniles charged with misdemeanors.