Daphna Renan

Daphna Renan is the Peter B. Munroe and Mary J. Munroe Professor of Law at Harvard Law School. She is a leading scholar of constitutional democracy and presidential power. She teaches courses on structural constitutional law, administrative law, the US presidency, and public law theory. She is the author with Nikolas Bowie of the book Supremacy: How Rule by the Court Replaced Government by the People (W.W. Norton 2026). Her work has appeared in numerous academic publications, including the Harvard Law Review, the Stanford Law Review, and the Yale Law Journal, as well as in print and digital media.

From 2009-2012, Renan served in the U.S. Department of Justice as counsel to the Deputy Attorney General and then as attorney advisor in the Office of Legal Counsel. She also served on President-Elect Barack Obama’s Justice Department transition team. She clerked for Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg of the U.S. Supreme Court and Judge Harry T. Edwards of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. She received her J.D. from Yale Law School, where she served as an articles editor of the Yale Law Journal. She received her B.A., graduating summa cum laude, from Yale College.