Andrea Freeman

Andrea Freeman is Second Century Professor of Law at Southwestern Law School in Los Angeles. Her path to that role was built through clerkships, a series of visiting and permanent faculty appointments, and advancement through the ranks at University of Hawai’i William S. Richardson School of Law. Freeman spent 2006 to 2008 as Law Clerk to Hon. José A. Fusté at the U.S. District Court of the District of Puerto Rico in San Juan, then from 2008 to 2010 as Law Clerk to Hon. Jon O. Newman at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit in Hartford. Those years sharpened the habits that inform legal work, including close reading, procedural discipline, precision in argument, and attention to the record. Her teaching career began in 2010 as Visiting Assistant Professor at California Western School of Law in San Diego. She then served as Visiting Professor at Santa Clara University School of Law in Santa Clara in 2012 and as Visiting Professor at University of San Francisco School of Law in San Francisco from 2012 to 2013. These appointments widened the range of her classroom experience while keeping her work anchored in doctrine, method, and the needs of students entering practice. At University of Hawai’i William S. Richardson School of Law in Honolulu, Freeman established a longer academic home. She was Assistant Professor from 2013 to 2018, then Associate Professor, tenured, from 2018 to 2020, and professor of law from 2020 to 2023. During this period she also held visiting appointments as Visiting Professor at UC Berkeley School of Law in 2017 and at University of Denver Sturm College of Law from 2018 to 2019. In 2018 she was also Distinguished Sustainable Agriculture and Food Systems Scholar at Vermont Law School in Burlington. Freeman’s work has drawn recognition across scholarship, teaching, and public conversation. She received the James Beard Media Award for Food Issues and Advocacy in 2025, the L.A. Times Book Prize in History in 2025, and was named Montgomery Scholar in 2024. In 2024 she was also recognized as Professor of the Year, Upper Level. Earlier honors include Carlsmith Ball Faculty Scholar in 2021 and the Fulbright King's College London Research Scholar Award in 2020. Across clerkships, classrooms, and faculty appointments, Freeman’s career reflects sustained legal teaching, institutional range, and a steady focus on structure, argument, and the demands of practice.