About
Positions & Roles
2023-present
Member, Climate Advisory Board of Norges Bank Investment Management
2020-present
Member, Council on Foreign Relations
2019-present
Member, American Academy of Arts & Sciences (Class V, Section IV, Public Affairs and Public Policy)
2018-2021
Member, Advisory Council of the Electric Power Research Institute
2012-2023
Independent Member, Board of Directors, ConocoPhillips
2011-present
Fellow, American College of Environmental Lawyers
2011-present
Archibald Cox Professor of Law, Harvard Law School
2006-present
Founder, Director of the Environmental & Energy Law Program, Harvard Law School
2010
Independent Consultant, President Obama’s bipartisan Commission on the BP Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill and Offshore Drilling
Education
S.J.D. Law — Harvard Law School, 1995
(Doctor of Juridical Science)
LL.M. Law — Harvard Law School, 1991
(Masters of Law)
LL.B. Law — University of Toronto, 1989 (Bachelor of Law)
B.A. — Stanford University, 1985
(Bachelor of Arts)
Work
Archibald Cox Professor of Law, Harvard Law School, 2005-present
White House Counselor for Energy and Climate Change, 2009-2010
Professor of Law, UCLA, 1995-2005
Jody Freeman is the Archibald Cox Professor of Law and a leading scholar of administrative law and environmental law. Freeman served as Counselor for Energy and Climate Change in the Obama White House in 2009-2010. She is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, a Fellow of the American College of Environmental Lawyers and a member of the Council on Foreign Relations. While in the White House, she was the architect of President Obama’s historic agreement with the U.S. auto industry to double fuel efficiency standards. Freeman worked with the Biden transition team developing the administration’s climate action plan.
Professor Freeman has written extensively about climate change, environmental regulation, presidential power, and judicial review, and has been recognized as the second-most cited public law scholar in the country. She has produced several books, including the landmark Global Climate Change and U.S. Law (co-edited with Gerrard and Burger), with the new edition published in 2023.
Professor Freeman founded Harvard Law School’s Environmental and Energy Law Program, a pioneering research center on climate and energy law and policy. She also established the Law School’s first environmental law clinic. She co-Chairs the Presidential Committee on Sustainability at Harvard.
In addition to her role at Harvard Law School, Professor Freeman serves on the Climate Advisory Board of Norges Bank Investment Management, the asset manager of the Norwegian sovereign wealth fund. Professor Freeman formerly served on the Advisory Council of the Electric Power Research Institute and as an independent director of ConocoPhillips. In all her external work, she works to make progress on climate change and advance the clean energy transition. Professor Freeman discusses her tenure on the ConocoPhillips board here and her role as an independent director here. Freeman speaks at events around the world and can be heard on NPR, MSNBC and CNN. She has written for the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Guardian, Los Angeles Times, Politico, Vox and Foreign Affairs.
Professor Freeman consults regularly for government and non-governmental parties, advising on litigation and regulatory strategy.