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Jon W. Bruce

Professor of Law Emeritus

Jon W. Bruce is a nationally recognized expert in real property law, real estate finance, and the law of easements. His treatise, The Law of Easements and Licenses in Land, co-authored with his colleague James Ely, is a frequently cited and influential treatise on the law of easements. Professor Bruce was the John J. Sparkman Distinguished Visiting Professor of Law at the University of Alabama School of Law in the spring of 1999, and he was honored as a Parson's Visitor at the University of Sydney, Australia, in 1993. Professor Bruce has taught Property, Land Use Planning, and Real Estate Finance and Development. He received awards for outstanding teaching in 2003, 2004 and 2008. He retired from Vanderbilt's law faculty in 2009.

Research Interests

Property, easements, land use planning, real estate finance


Representative Publications

  • The Law of Easements and Licenses in Land (revised edition March 2016) (with James Ely)
  • Real Estate Finance in a Nutshell (6th edition 2009)
  • Cases and Materials on Modern Property Law (6th edition 2007) (with James Ely)
  • "Vanderbilt Law School in the Nineteenth Century: Its Creation and Formative Years," 56 Vanderbilt Law Review 497 (2003) (with D. Don Welch)
  • A Land Use Anthology (editor, 1998)
  • "The Role Uniform Real Property Acts Have Played in the Development of American Land Law: Some General Observations," 27 Wake Forest Law Review 331 (1992)