Emily M. Broad Leib

Emily Broad Leib is a Clinical Professor of Law, Director of Harvard Law School Center for Health Law and Policy Innovation, and Founding 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, food access and food is medicine interventions, and equity 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.

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. Broad Leib continued to gain national prominence when she was named one of Fortune and Food & Wine Magazine’s 2016 Most Innovative Women in Food and Drink; a list reserved for those that have had the most transformative impact on what the public eats and drink. Her work on food waste and recovery is now global, with a project on food donation policy that engages partners in more than twenty countries across the globe. 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 also made appearances on CBS This Morning, CNN, The Today Show, and MSNBC.

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

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