Harvard Law School Professor To Serve Government Agency

Harvard Law School Professor Jody Freeman has been tapped to serve as a public member of the Council of the Administrative Conference of the United States.

Freeman will work with 50 senior federal officials and experts in administrative law to find innovative approaches to improving bureaucratic processes.

The ACUS is an independent, non-partisan government agency that works to increase the efficiency and effectiveness of federal agencies through applied research.

Freeman served in the White House from 2009 to 2010 as Counselor for Energy and Climate Change. She spearheaded a proposal to create national fuel efficiency standards and reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

“What a superb recognition of Jody’s leadership, knowledge, and imagination,” said Dean of the Law School Martha L. Minow, according to a press release. “We are delighted that the Administrative Conference will have the benefit of Jody’s recent experience in Washington, where her work on American energy and climate change issues included interagency collaborations, and an historic agreement among the auto industry, California, and key stakeholders on federal fuel efficiency standards and federal greenhouse gas standards.”

Freeman also worked on policy initiatives related to renewable energy, offshore drilling, and transmission policy.

“I got to see how government agencies work up close from the perspective of the White House,” Freeman said. “I worked very closely with different agencies and had a window into the things that work well and the things that don’t work so well.”

Freeman said she looks forward to finding collaborative approaches that draw from both the public and private sectors to improve the functioning of federal agencies.

At the Law School, Freeman founded the Environmental Law and Policy Program. She teaches environmental law, and was appointed to an endowed chair in public law named after Archibald Cox, Jr., the former Solicitor General under President John F. Kennedy ’40 and first special prosecutor during the Watergate scandal.

Freeman’s new position will not interfere with her teaching at HLS, where she said she “loves being back in the classroom.” She added that her experience in the White House has made her teaching “much richer.”

The ACUS was established in 1964, until it was terminated briefly because of funding shortages in 1995. Congress reauthorized the conference in 2004 and 2008.

—Staff writer Zoe A. Y. Weinberg can be reached at zoe.weinberg@college.harvard.edu.