William Funk
Jeffrey Bain Faculty Scholar
Professor of Law

Specialty Areas & Course Descriptions

Administrative Law, Constitutional Law I and II, Environmental Law, Graduate Environmental Law Seminar

Academic Credentials

B.A. 1967 Harvard University
J.D., Harlan Fiske Stone Scholar and James Kent Scholar, 1973 Columbia University School of Law
Writing and research editor, Columbia Journal of Environmental Law

Professional Background

Before coming to the law school to teach, Professor Funk was an assistant general counsel at the U.S. Department of Energy and earned a special citation for exceptional performance from the Secretary of Energy. Prior to that Funk served as the principal staff member of the Legislation Subcommittee of the U.S. House of Representatives Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, where he was instrumental in the drafting of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. Before joining the House Committee, Funk was a staff attorney in the Office of Legal Counsel of the U.S. Department of Justice, where he received a special commendation for outstanding service. Immediately after law school he clerked for Judge James Oakes of the U.S. Court of Appeals, Second Circuit.

Professor Funk is a co-author of one of the leading administrative law casebooks, Administrative Procedure and Practice: Problems and Cases, as well as Administrative Law: Examples & Explanations and the Federal Administrative Procedure Sourcebook. Together with Professor Craig Johnston, Professor Funk is also a co-author of Legal Protection of the Environment, an environmental law casebook. In 2004-05, Funk was a Senior Fulbright Scholar at the University of Heidelberg, where he taught both American constitutional law and environmental law. Funk writes regularly on administrative and environmental issues and has chaired both the Administrative Law and Natural Resources Law Sections of the American Association of Law Schools. He is also active in the American Bar Association, including serving on the Council and chairing its Administrative Law and Regulatory Practice Section. Currently, he is co-chair of an ABA-wide task force on Preemption of the State Tort Law. Professor Funk is also a Center for Progressive Reform Scholar. He has been admitted to practice in New York, the District of Columbia, and before the U.S. Supreme Court. In 2008 Professor Funk was named Jeffrey Bain Faculty Scholar in recognition of his exemplary teaching and scholarship in public law subjects.