J.H. (Rip) Verkerke is a professor of law and director of the Program for Employment and Labor Law Studies at the University of Virginia School of Law. He earned an M.Phil. in economics and a J.D. from Yale University. He joined the UVA Law School faculty in 1991 after clerking for Judge Ralph K. Winter, Jr. of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit. Verkerke teaches contracts, several employment law courses and a seminar on conservation planning and law.

A pioneer in the use of technology to support legal education, Verkerke was selected as an inaugural member of the University Academy of Teaching and won an All-University Teaching Award in 2007. In 2012, he received a Hybrid Challenge Grant for Technology-Enhanced Teaching to transform his first-year contracts class using the flipped classroom model of instruction. He previously chaired the University Committee on Information Technology.

Verkerke’s published research focuses on employment discrimination law, employment contracts, vicarious liability, the economics of discrimination, and contract theory. He has also co-authored an empirical study of law school teaching practices and how those methods affect student experiences and outcomes.

In June 1996 Verkerke received a three-year grant from the University's Academic Enhancement Program to establish the Program for Employment and Labor Law Studies at the Law School. He served as visiting professor of law at the University of Texas at Austin in the fall of 1997. Verkerke also participated in an ABA project to draft a new labor code for the transitional government of Afghanistan. In 2007, Verkerke received an All-University Teaching Award from UVA, and in 2011, he was selected as an inaugural member of the University Academy of Teaching.