Distinguished Speakers

John Goldberg

Interim Dean, Harvard Law School
Carter Professor of General Jurisprudence
J.D., NYU School of Law
M. Phil., Oxford University
M.A., Princeton University
B.A., with high honors, Wesleyan University

Currently serving as Harvard Law School’s interim dean, John Goldberg is an expert in tort law, tort theory, and political philosophy. He joined the Law School faculty in 2008 and served as a deputy dean from 2017 to 2022. Previously, he was a faculty member of Vanderbilt Law School, where he was associate dean for Research (2006–08).

He is co-author of Recognizing Wrongs (Harvard University Press 2020), 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. 

John 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, John 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, he was chair of the Torts and Compensation Systems Section of the Association of American Law Schools. 

John received his J.D. in 1991 from New York University School of Law, where he served as editor-in-chief of the NYU Law Review. John clerked for Judge Jack Weinstein of the Eastern District of New York and 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.