Emily M. Broad Leib

Emily Broad Leib is a Clinical Professor of Law and Director of Harvard Law School Center for Health Law and Policy Innovation. She is also the Founder and Faculty Director of the Harvard Law School Food Law and Policy Clinic, the nation’s first law school clinic devoted to providing legal and policy solutions to the health, economic, and environmental challenges facing our food system. Working directly with clients and communities, Broad Leib champions community-led food system change, reduction in food waste, increased food access and food is medicine interventions, and sustainability in food production. Her scholarly work has been published in the California Law Review, Wisconsin Law Review, Harvard Law & Policy Review, Food & Drug Law Journal, and Journal of Food Law & Policy, among others.A recognized leader in the field, Broad Leib’s work has been covered by The New York Times, Los Angeles Times, Boston Globe, The Guardian, TIME, Politico, and The Washington Post. She has made appearances on CBS This Morning, CNN, The Today Show, and MSNBC.

In 2015, Broad Leib became one of seven inaugural recipients of Harvard’s Drew Faust’s Climate Change Solution Fund. Her project, “Reducing Food Waste as Key to Addressing Climate Change”, leveraged the Clinic’s food law and policy expertise to combat food waste, a major producer of greenhouse gas emissions. Her work on food waste and recovery is now global, with a project on food waste policy that engages partners in more than thirty countries across the globe. 

Broad Leib co-founded the Academy of Food Law and Policy, a network of law professors researching, teaching, and mentoring on food law and policy, and from 2016-2019 served as Founding Co-Chair of the Academy’s Board of Trustees. To usher in a new generation of legal practitioners and scholars, Broad Leib has hosted an recurring Food Law Student Leadership Summit and supported the development of the student-led National Food Law Student Network. She is also the faculty supervisor for the Harvard Law School Food Law Society.

Before joining Harvard Law School’s faculty, Broad Leib spent two years in Clarksdale, Mississippi as the Joint Harvard Law School/Mississippi State University Delta Fellow. She served as the Director of the Delta Directions Consortium, a group of university and foundation leaders dedicated to improving public health and fostering economic development in the Delta. Broad Leib remains committed to the project as the faculty supervisor of the Harvard Law School Mississippi Delta Project.

She received her B.A. from Columbia University and her J.D. from Harvard Law School, cum laude.