Marcos A. Mendoza

Coverage Counsel, Legal and Regulatory Affairs, Texas Assoc. of School Boards

Scholar in Residence, Insurance Law Center

Marcos Mendoza is a Scholar in Residence with the Insurance Law Center. Marcos holds an LLM in Insurance Law with honors from the University of Connecticut School of Law (2014), a JD from Washburn University School of Law (1989), and a BA in History from Baker University (1986). He is also Coverage Counsel for Legal and Regulatory Affairs with TASB Inc., the third-party administrator of the TASB Risk Fund, one of the largest governmental risk pools in the United States. Marcos’ inside counsel practice focuses on creating and revising coverage contracts and the evaluation of risk. The Risk Fund provides errors and omissions, board liability, commercial property, general liability, cyber liability, auto, violent act, unemployment, and Workers Compensation lines of coverage for educational entities in Texas. Overall, risk pooling provides coverage for approximately 80 percent of the governmental entities in the United States.

Marcos was recently appointed one of eight Contributing Lawyer–Editors for the 12th edition of Black’s Law Dictionary (2024). His significant editorial work focused on revising and creating definitions regarding insurance and risk.

Marcos authored “Reinsurance as Governance: Governmental Risk Management Pools as a Case Study in the Governance Role Played by Reinsurance Institutions” (21 Conn Ins. L.J. 53, 2014). This qualitative empirical research extends the research of the “Insurance as Governance” scholarship to reinsurance. This article is cited extensively by Professor John Rappaport in the Harvard Law Review article, “How Private Insurers Regulate Public Police” (130 Harv. L. Rev. 1539, 2017), and in briefs to the Washington Supreme Court and the U.S. Supreme Court. Marcos also authored “The Limits of Insurance as Governance: Professional Liability Coverage for Civil Rights Claims Against Public School Districts” (38 Quinnipiac L. Rev. 375, 2020) This empirical article received the 2021 Stephen S. Goldberg Award for Distinguished Scholarship in Education Law, an honor previously awarded to Professor Justin Driver of Yale Law School and Dean Martha Minow of Harvard Law School. Marcos’ research determines that insurers’ influence is nominal on the civil rights policies of public school districts and reassesses the dominance of the Insurance as Governance theory.

Marcos’ work has been cited in insurance law textbooks (including Abraham and Schwarcz, and Martinez and Richmond) and scholarly articles. He has contributed to several industry publications, including the Journal of Reinsurance, Corporate Counsel Magazine, Claims Journal, and the Business Law Prof Blog. His current sociolegal research focuses on risk sharing and risk participation within risk pooling contracts compared with risk transfer concepts.

Marcos has more than 35 years of experience in the insurance and risk industry with State Farm Insurance, in private practice, and in his present positions. He is licensed to practice law in Texas, Colorado, Kansas, Missouri, and Washington, D.C. Marcos also holds the Chartered Property Casualty Underwriter insurance industry designation. He lives in Austin, Texas.