Dan Farber is the Sho Sato Professor of Law at the University of California, Berkeley. He also has leadership roles at two Berkeley research centers: the Center for Law, Energy, and Environment; and the Edley Center on Law and Democracy. Professor Farber is a member of the American Academy of Arts.
Professor Farber is a graduate of the University of Illinois, where he earned his B.A., M.A., and J.D. degrees. He graduated, summa cum laude, from the College of Law, where he was the class valedictorian and served as editor-in-chief of the University of Illinois Law Review. After law school, he was a law clerk for Judge Philip W. Tone of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit and then for Justice John Paul Stevens of the U.S. Supreme Court. Professor Farber practiced law with Sidley & Austin, where he primarily worked on energy issues, before returning to the University of Illinois as a faculty member in 1978. He taught at the University of Minnesota Law School faculty from 1981 to 2002, where he was the McKnight Presidential Professor of Public Law. He also has been a visiting professor at the Stanford Law School, Harvard Law School, and the University of Chicago Law School.
His most recent book is Contested Ground: How to Understand the Limits on Presidential Power (UC Press 2021). His earlier books include Research Handbook on Public Choice and Public Law (Elgar 2010) (with A. O’Connell); Judgment Calls: Politics and Principle in Constitutional Law (Oxford University Press 2008) (with S. Sherry); Retained by the People: The “Silent” Ninth Amendment and the Rights Americans Don’t Know They Have (Basic Books 2007); Lincoln’s Constitution (University of Chicago Press 2003); and Eco-Pragmatism: How to Make Sensible Environmental Decisions in an Uncertain World (University of Chicago Press 1999).
Education
B.A., University of Illinois (1971)
M.A., University of Illinois (1972)
J.D., University of Illinois (1975)
Daniel Farber is teaching the following course in Fall 2024:
Courses During Other Semesters
| Semester | Course Num | Course Title |  Teaching Evaluations | Summer 2025 | 201S sec. 001 | Business Torts | 206.51S sec. 001 | Advanced Writing Project | Spring 2025 | 206C sec. 001 | Note Publishing Workshop | 272.3 sec. 001 | Climate Change and the Law | 274.7 sec. 001 | Environmental Law Colloquium | Summer 2024 | 201S sec. 001 | Torts for LLMs | View Teaching Evaluation | 206.51S sec. 001 | Advanced Writing Project | View Teaching Evaluation | Summer 2023 | 201S sec. 001 | Torts for LLMs | View Teaching Evaluation | 206.51S sec. 001 | Advanced Writing Project | View Teaching Evaluation | Spring 2023 | 270.72 sec. 001 | Pathways to Carbon Neutrality | View Teaching Evaluation | 272.3 sec. 001 | Climate Change and the Law | View Teaching Evaluation |
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Biden Climate Rules Move Ahead Amid Wait for Final Carbon Metric
It’s “clear” that the cost of carbon emissions isn’t zero, according to University of California Berkeley law professor Dan Farber.
How US climate lawsuits could hold Big Oil accountable
“This will reinforce concerns that the banking industry already has, and also concerns that major investors have, about the fossil-fuel industry and whether it’s a good investment,” Berkeley Law professor Dan Farber told Al Jazeera. “So I think this definitely puts pressure on them, the longer these cases stick around.”
Highway carbon rule an early test of SCOTUS climate ruling
Ethan Elkind, director of the climate program at UC Berkeley’s Center for Law, Energy and the Environment and Daniel Farber, law professor at the Center for Law, Energy and the Environment discuss a proposal by the Biden administration to require all states to track and reduce on-road vehicle greenhouse gas emissions.
Ecology Law Quarterly Celebrates 50 Years of Publication — and a Powerhouse Community
The student-run journal sits at the pinnacle of the academic landscape, publishing groundbreaking environmental law scholarship four times a year.
No Constitutional Right to Abortion? Some Observers Plead the Ninth
The authors of the Constitution “believed the Bill of Rights wasn’t creating rights but was recognizing rights that were already out there,” says Professor Daniel Farber, author of Retained by the People, a 2007 book about the Ninth Amendment. The current court’s majority “has basically ignored” that amendment, he says, most likely because “it looks like a wide-open invitation and it doesn’t really say anything about how you decide what’s covered.”
Berkeley Law Experts Say Climate Policy More Urgent Than Ever After Supreme Court Setback
The Center for Law, Energy & the Environment brought together three experts for a recent webinar to discuss the implications of the ruling for climate policy.
Virtually No Federal Regulation Is Safe From the Supreme Court’s New ‘Major Legal Questions’ Doctrine
Dean Erwin Chemerinsky and Professor Daniel Farber discuss the potential impact of the West Virginia v. EPA ruling. The ruling “is very vague about what is a major question or what is sufficient specificity to meet it, the court has opened the door to challenges to countless agency actions,” Chemerinsky says. “I think his fundamental objection is, EPA is leveraging a tiny pedal (of regulatory authority) in the Clean Air Act and using it to take over the world,” Farber says of Chief Justice John Roberts’ opinion. “It goes beyond the role that Congress gave them in dealing with emissions from specific sources into trying to change the whole energy system.”
‘A Serious Setback’: Supreme Court Sides With West Virginia in West Virginia v. EPA
Professor Daniel Farber calls the Supreme Court’s ruling “more than a flesh wound” but not fatal. The majority opinion still allows the EPA other options to regulate coal-fired power plants, he adds. “Some people are portraying it as a huge disaster; I don’t think it’s as bad as that,” he says. “It’s a serious setback, but it’s one that we can move past.”
Supreme Court Ruling Takes Power From EPA, CA Leaders Outraged
Professor Daniel Farber says the Supreme Court’s decision in West Virginia v. EPA, which holds that the agency doesn’t have broad authority under the Clean Air Act to regulate greenhouse gas emissions from power plants, is a hit to the fight against climate change but doesn’t completely tie the Biden administration’s hands. California’s strong laws will shield the state from much of the ruling’s impact, although the state does get electricity from affected states, he says.
Could Texas Really Secede? Experts Weigh in
“Secession is clearly unconstitutional. There’s a reason the pledge of allegiance refers to ‘one nation, indivisible’,” Professor Daniel Farber says. “That’s as much true now as it was in 1865 when the South (including Texas) lost the Civil War, or 1868 when the 14th Amendment guaranteed all Americans the rights of citizenship.”
Abortion, Climate, Guns, and Religion: Supreme Court Poised for a Sharp Right Turn
Four Berkeley Law professors, including Dean Erwin Chemerinsky, discuss the court’s anticipated conservative decisions on some of America’s most divisive issues.
Move to Scrap Roe Opens Justices to ‘Politicians in Robes’ Label
Professor Dan Farber says the draft Dobbs opinion appears to go out of its way to decide issues that the justices don’t need to reach in order to resolve the case
Supreme Court leak strikes fear among environmental lawyers
Professor Dan Farber predicts that the Supreme Court’s dismissive attitude toward precedent in Roe v Wade is another signal of a conservative majority that’s eager to roll up its sleeves and “fix” all the issues in the law that conservatives have complained about for years
The Kochs’ Dream of Smashing Climate Action May Be About to Come True
Professor Dan Farber says the Supreme Court’s upcoming ruling in West Virginia vs. EPA is likely to curtail not just EPA’s ability to combat climate change but the government’s ability to protect the public from other threats, from financial fraud to public health
Turn the Page: A Prolific Year of Powerful and Pathbreaking Books from Berkeley Law’s Faculty
A recent celebration of 39 works that probe compelling issues across and beyond the legal landscape highlights the faculty’s far-reaching expertise.
Next justice unlikely to make a difference in climate law
Professor Daniel Farber says that the new justice should be able to work with other justices on the court but also have the ability to write strong dissents and appeal to the public sense of what the court has done
Climate ‘champion’ sought to replace Breyer
Professor Daniel Farber comments that Justice Stephen Breyer’s “contribution has taken the form of low-key concurrences and dissents” in the subject of environmental law
Supreme Court Vaccine Decision Signals Trouble for Climate Rule
Professor Daniel Farber says that any bold actions like a vaccine-or-test mandate or climate change policies through agencies is going to have tough sledding in the Supreme Court
Roe v. Wade on the line as Supreme Court takes up Mississippi abortion rights case
Major Gift Expands Environmental Law and Social Justice Work at Two Berkeley Law Centers
The gift from Ruth Greenspan Bell ’67 and her husband Joseph Bell will fund scholarships and programming at Berkeley Law’s environmental law and social justice centers.