Michael Gerrard is the Andrew Sabin Professor of Professional Practice at Columbia Law School and the founder and faculty director of the Sabin Center for Climate Change Law. He also holds a joint appointment at the Columbia Climate School. His scholarship and teaching focus on environmental law, climate change law and policy, and energy regulation, with particular attention to the legal tools available to advance decarbonization and address climate-related risks.

Before joining Columbia, Gerrard spent three decades in legal practice, handling environmental litigation, regulatory compliance, and the environmental dimensions of development projects and transactions. He co-edited Legal Pathways to Deep Decarbonization in the United States and has worked with the Republic of the Marshall Islands on legal questions arising from sea-level rise. His work connects legal scholarship with practical responses to climate change.