John C.P. Goldberg

John C.P. Goldberg is the Morgan and Helen Chu Dean and Professor of Law at Harvard Law School. Goldberg, an expert in tort law, tort theory, and political philosophy, joined the Law School faculty in 2008. He served as a Deputy Dean from 2017 to 2022 and as the Interim Dean from 2024 to 2025. Goldberg held the Eli Goldston Professorship of Law from 2012 to 2018 and the Carter Professorship of General Jurisprudence from 2018 to 2025. Previously he was a faculty member of Vanderbilt Law School, where he was Associate Dean for Research from 2005 to 2008. He is co-author of Recognizing Wrongs (Harvard University Press 2020), as well as a leading casebook — Tort Law: Responsibilities and Redress (5th ed. 2021) and The Oxford Introductions to U.S. Law: Torts (2010). He has also published dozens of articles and essays in scholarly journals. Goldberg has taught an array of first-year and upper-level courses, and has received multiple teaching prizes. An Associate Reporter for the American Law Institute’s Fourth Restatement of Property, Goldberg also serves as an advisor to the Third Restatement of Torts. In addition, he is a member of the editorial boards of the Journal of Tort Law and Legal Theory, and in 2009 was Chair of the Torts and Compensation Systems Section of the Association of American Law Schools. After receiving his J.D. in 1991 from New York University School of Law, Goldberg clerked for Judge Jack Weinstein of the Eastern District of New York and for Supreme Court Justice Byron White. He earned his B.A. with high honors from the College of Social Studies, Wesleyan University. He also holds an M. Phil. in Politics from Oxford University and an M.A. in Politics from Princeton University. Before joining the Vanderbilt faculty, he briefly practiced law in Boston.