Richard L. Revesz

Richard L. Revesz, the Lawrence King Professor and Dean Emeritus at New York University School of Law, is one of the nation’s leading voices in the fields of environmental and regulatory law and policy. He has published eight books and over 70 articles in major law reviews and journals. His work focuses on the use of cost-benefit analysis, the allocation of regulatory responsibility in a federal system, and the design of liability regimes. In 1994 and 2007, Revesz received the American Bar Association’s award for the best article or book on administrative law and regulatory practice published during the prior year.

In Retaking Rationality: How Cost-Benefit Analysis Can Better Protect the Environment and Our Health (Oxford University Press, 2008), Revesz and co-author Michael Livermore argue for a more rational approach to cost-benefit analysis and regulation. As an outgrowth of that book, in 2008, Revesz co-founded the Institute for Policy Integrity at NYU School of Law, which he directs, to contribute original scholarly research in the areas of environmental, public health, and safety policy; to partner with non-governmental advocacy organizations to facilitate their effective participation in the regulatory process; and to advocate for reform before courts, legislatures, and executive agencies.

As dean of NYU School of Law from June 1, 2002, to May 31, 2013, Revesz increased the size of the full-time faculty by more than 30 percent, recruiting 46 new full-time professors, and building the leading faculty groups in many significant areas of law. He grew the number of clinics from 17 to 36, including a new clinic in Washington, DC, on the role of government, and established eleven new centers and institutes.

Revesz also enhanced the Law School’s already-historic commitment to public interest law, institutionalizing important programmatic and funding opportunities, including the doubling of the Root-Tilden-Kern Scholarship Program, which enables greater numbers of students to pursue public interest work. He also designed and launched the AnBryce Scholarship Program to support students from socio-economically disadvantaged backgrounds, among other substantial measures to increase the diversity of the legal profession and improve the provision of legal services to disadvantaged communities. During his tenure, Revesz raised a record-breaking $550 million to support such initiatives and oversaw the development of the Law School’s Washington Square campus, opening three new academic buildings—two of which received coveted LEED Platinum and Gold certifications—and undertaking major renovations to Vanderbilt Hall, the Law School’s flagship building.

In 2014, Revesz became the Director of the American Law Institute, the leading independent organization in the United States producing scholarly work to clarify, modernize, and otherwise improve the law. The role of the ALI Director is to identify subjects for the Institute's work, recruit distinguished academics to serve as Reporters on those projects, and generally oversee the intellectual output of the ALI.

Revesz is a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, a member of the Council on Foreign Relations, and a senior fellow of the Administrative Conference of the United States. He has served as an outside expert on committees of the National Academy of Sciences and of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.

Revesz graduated summa cum laude from Princeton University, earned a master’s degree in environmental engineering from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and received his law degree from Yale Law School, where he was editor-in-chief of the Yale Law Journal. Following clerkships with Chief Judge Wilfred Feinberg of the US Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit and Justice Thurgood Marshall of the US Supreme Court, Revesz joined the faculty of NYU School of Law in 1985. He has been a visiting professor at Princeton’s Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs, Harvard Law School, Yale Law School, and the Graduate Institute for International Studies in Geneva, Switzerland.