Perry then served as law clerk to U.S. District Judge Jack B. Weinstein (1973–74) and, a year later, to U.S.
Perry retired at the end of the 2022–23 academic year and is now Robert W. Woodruff Professor Emeritus at Emory University.
For three consecutive fall semesters (2009, 2010, 2011), Perry was the University Distinguished Visiting Professor in Law and Peace Studies at the University of San Diego, where he taught both in the School of Law and in the Joan B. Kroc School of Peace Studies.
Perry is married to Sarah O'Leary, who before retirement was a public health specialist at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control (CDC).
In March 2004, a symposium of some 500 scholars and students gathered at Emory University School of Law to celebrate the scholarship of its three Robert W. Woodruff Professors of Law, Harold J. Berman, Martha Albertson Fineman, and Michael J. Perry, and of Visiting Professor Martin E.