Michael B. Gerrard is Andrew Sabin Professor of Professional Practice at Columbia Law School, where he teaches courses on environmental and energy law and founded and directs the Sabin Center for Climate Change Law.   He is also a member and former Chair of the Faculty of Columbia’s Earth Institute. Before joining the Columbia faculty in January 2009, he was partner in charge of the New York office of the Arnold & Porter law firm; he is now Senior Counsel to the firm.  He practiced environmental law in New York City full time from 1979 to 2008. His practice involved trying numerous cases and arguing many appeals in federal and state courts and administrative tribunals; handling the environmental aspects of numerous transactions and development projects; and providing regulatory compliance advice to a wide variety of clients in the private and public sectors. 

Gerrard was the 2004-2005 chair of the American Bar Association’s 10,000-member section of environment, energy, and resources. He also chaired the New York City Bar Association’s executive committee and the New York State Bar Association’s environmental law section. He has served on the executive committees of the boards of the Environmental Law Institute and the American College of Environmental Lawyers. Several independent rating services ranked Gerrard as the leading environmental lawyer in New York and one of the leading environmental lawyers in the world. 

Since 1986, Gerrard has written an environmental law column for the New York Law Journal.  He is author or editor of thirteen books, two of which were named Best Law Book of the Year by the Association of American Publishers: Environmental Law Practice Guide (twelve volumes, 1992) and Brownfields Law and Practice (four volumes, 1998). Among his other books are Global Climate Change and U.S. Law (with Jody Freeman and Michael Burger) (3d ed. 2023); Law of Clean Energy: Efficiency and Renewables (2011); Climate Engineering and the Law: Regulation and Liability for Solar Radiation Management and Carbon Dioxide Removal (with Tracy Hester 2018); and Legal Pathways to Deep Decarbonization in the United States (with John Dernbach, 2019). 

He received his B.A. from Columbia University and his J.D. from NYU Law School, where he was a Root Tilden Scholar.