Robert N. Sayler is a professor of oral advocacy at the University of Virginia School of Law. He studied Rhetoric and Trial Advocacy at Stanford University and Harvard Law School. He joined the law firm of Covington & Burling, LLP, in Washington, D.C. in 1965, where he specialized in trying complex multi-party cases, including product liability, antitrust, intellectual property and cases seeking insurance coverage for mass liabilities arising from asbestos, breast implants, Exxon-Valdez, Superfund, and other environmental clean-up costs. He is a member of the American College of Trial Lawyers and has served as the Chair of the American Bar Association's Litigation Section. He has been named multiple times as one of the country's 100 Most Influential Lawyers by the National Law Journal; on American Lawyer's list of Top Ten D.C. Litigators; as Commercial Prosecutor of the Year by the International Commercial Journal; and as "the father" of insurance coverage litigation by Chambers International. In 1995, he was appointed the John Ewald Chair at the University of Virginia School of Law, where he teaches trial advocacy, rhetoric and oral communications.
