Prof. Richard Briffault

Richard Briffault is the Joseph P. Chamberlain Professor of Legislation at Columbia Law School, where he has taught since 1983, and the Law School's leading authority on state and local government law, legislation, the law of the political process, campaign finance, and government ethics. He served as Reporter for the American Law Institute's Principles of the Law, Government Ethics, approved in 2023, and from 2014 to 2021 chaired the New York City Conflicts of Interest Board. He was a member of New York State's Moreland Commission to Investigate Public Corruption (2013–14) and has served on or advised numerous city and state commissions on governance and campaign finance, including as principal author of Dollars and Democracy, the New York City Bar's 2000 blueprint for campaign finance reform. He is co-author of the casebook State and Local Government Law and author of more than seventy law review articles. He clerked for Judge Shirley M. Hufstedler of the Ninth Circuit and served as Assistant Counsel to Governor Hugh L. Carey.