Jody Freeman

Jody Freeman
Born	1964 (age 59–60)
Nationality	American
Education	Stanford University (BA) University of Toronto (LLB) Harvard University (LLM, SJD)
Website	https://www.jodyfreeman.com/

Jody Freeman (born 1964) is a professor at Harvard Law School in administrative law and environmental law. From 2009 to 2010, she was Counselor for Energy and Climate Change in the Obama White House. In August 2023, she resigned from her position as director of the board of ConocoPhillips, after more than one and a half years of criticism by Harvard students and faculty. She had denied having violated conflict of interest rules. Emails demonstrated she participated in the company's lobbying efforts to convince the Securities and Exchange Commission to weaken its climate risk disclosure rules.

Early life and education

Freeman was raised in Vancouver, British Columbia. She earned a Bachelor of Arts degree from Stanford University in 1985, and a Bachelor of Laws degree from the University of Toronto in 1989. She went on to Master of Laws and Doctor of Juridical Science degrees from Harvard Law School, which she received in 1991 and 1995, respectively.

Career

In 1990–91, she clerked at the Ontario Court of Appeal for a panel of judges including future Canadian Supreme Court Justice and UN High Commissioner Louise Arbour. From 1995 to 2005, Freeman was a Professor of Law at UCLA, where she co-founded the Environmental Law Program and was an award-winning teacher. From 2001 to 2004, Freeman also taught environmental law and served as Associate Dean for Law and Policy at the Bren School of Environmental Science & Management at UCSB.

She has been a visiting professor at Georgetown Law Center, New York University Law School, and Stanford Law School.

In 2005, Freeman joined the Harvard Law School faculty. She was one of a number of hires made during Elena Kagan's tenure as Dean. In 2006, she founded Harvard's Environmental and Energy Law and Policy program, a legal "think tank" for climate and energy policy analysis, and established an environmental law clinic.

In 2006, Freeman authored an amicus brief on behalf of former United States Secretary of State Madeleine Albright in Massachusetts v. Environmental Protection Agency, the global warming case decided by the Supreme Court in 2007.

From 2009–2010, she served as Counselor for Energy and Climate Change in the Obama White House.

In 2015, she and her colleague Richard Lazarus co-authored an amicus brief on behalf of William D. Ruckelshaus and William K. Reilly, former Administrators of the Environmental Protection Agency, supporting the government in the litigation over the Obama administration's Clean Power Plan.

Work

Freeman is a scholar of both administrative law and environmental law, and has written about climate change, environmental regulation and executive power. She has written on "collaborative governance".

Freeman currently serves on the Climate Advisory Board of Norges Bank Investment Management, the asset manager of the Norwegian sovereign wealth fund.

Memberships

She has served as a member of the Administrative Conference of the United States, a body that advises the federal government on how to improve the regulatory and administrative process. She is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, of the American College of Environmental Lawyers, and of the Council on Foreign Relations.

Freeman formerly served as an independent director of ConocoPhillips, and as a member of the advisory council of the Electric Power Research Institute.

Controversy

In 2022, Freeman faced criticism for a perceived conflict of interest regarding her simultaneous climate leadership roles at Harvard, and her service as director on the board of oil and gas major ConocoPhillips. In March 2022, Harvard students called on her to choose between her $350,000/year ConocoPhillips salary and her Harvard leadership responsibilities. In April 2022, fellow Harvard faculty had raised concerns about her receipt of a major Harvard research grant to study corporate net-zero pledges at the same time that ConocoPhillips was attracting scrutiny for greenwashing. In April 2023, in wake of the approval of the Willow project, The Guardian published emails reportedly showing Freeman participating in the company's lobbying efforts to convince the Securities and Exchange Commission to weaken its climate risk disclosure rules. The Guardian also noted that Freeman's emails may have violated Harvard policy requiring affirmative disclosure of conflicts of interest in each communication with a policymaking audience. Freeman denied any policy violations. Following publication of the emails, a group of Freeman's students joined the call for her to resign.

In August 2023, Freeman resigned from the ConocoPhillips board. In her announcement, she noted that it would allow her to "focus on my research at Harvard and make space for some new opportunities."

Seleted bibliography

Co-author

• —; Farber, Daniel A. (2006). Cases and Materials on Environmental Law. Thomson/West. ISBN 9780314908834.
• —; Kolstad, Charles D. (2007). Moving to markets in environmental regulation: lessons from twenty years of experience. Oxford University Press. OCLC 79857125.
• —; Minow, Martha (February 28, 2009). Government by Contract: Outsourcing and American Democracy. Harvard University Press. ISBN 9780674032088.
• —; Diver, Colin S.; Beermann, Jack M.; Cass, Ronald A. (February 2, 2020). Administrative Law: Cases and Materials. Aspen Publishing. ISBN 9781543804423.

Co-editor

• —; Gerrard, Michael, eds. (2014). Global Climate Change and U.S. Law. American Bar Association. ISBN 9781639052196.
• —; Graham, John D.; Konisky, David M.; Barnes, A. James, eds. (February 15, 2021). "The EPA and Climate Change". Fifty Years at the US Environmental Protection Agency: Progress, Retrenchment, and Opportunities. Rowman & Littlefield. ISBN 978-1538147146.