Sam Bookman

Sam Bookman is a postdoctoral fellow at Harvard Law School’s Project on the Foundations of Private Law and a Nonresident Fellow at NYU’s Guarini Center on Environmental, Energy, and Land Use Law. His research explores the intersection of climate change and rights in both public and private law, focusing on how climate change sparks new rights-based claims and disrupts existing legal relationships. He has taught climate-related law courses at Harvard Law School, Boston College, and the University of Melbourne.

Sam earned his SJD from Harvard Law School and his first law degree from the University of Auckland, Aotearoa/New Zealand, where he clerked for the country’s Chief District Court Judge. From January 2026 he will be a Lecturer (Assistant Professor) at Melbourne Law School.

Sam practices international and environmental law in New York and serves as Senior Staff Attorney at the Cyrus R. Vance Center for International Justice. His work has been published in several journals, including the Oxford Journal of Legal Studies, Modern Law Review, Utah Law Review, and Pennsylvania Journal of Constitutional Law, among other journals.