O’Neill Institute Fall Conversation Series with Michael Roberts
Where’s the Beef ?
A Hard Look at Food Law’s Oldest Global Challenge: Food Fraud
Michael T. Roberts
Executive Director
Resnick Program for Food Law and Policy, UCLA School of Law
Biography:
Michael T. Roberts is the founding Executive Director of the newly established Resnick Program for Food Law and Policy at UCLA School of Law. He is well versed in a broad range of legal and policy issues from farm to fork in local, national, and global food supply systems. He is a prolific author, having contributed to books and having written several articles on food regulation, trade, and policy issues. He is currentlywriting a treatise on food law. He has guest lectured on food-law subjects at various law schools in the U.S., Europe, and Asia and speaks frequently at national and international conferences. In 2000, Mr. Roberts left his law practice and enrolled in the LL.M. program on agricultural law at the University of Arkansas School of Law, the only such program in the U.S. Since then, Mr. Roberts has engaged in a variety of professional capacities related to food law and policy. A few years after completing the LL.M. program, he was invited to join the University of Arkansas School of Law as a Research Professor of Law and as the Director of the National Agricultural Law Center, where he taught food law and policy and founded the law school’s Journal of Food Law and Policy. He is the former first chair of the Lex Mundi (world’s largest association of private law firms) international Agribusiness practice group. Mr. Roberts also was of counsel in Washington D.C. with Venable LLP, as a member of the firm’s food and agricultural law practice group, and special counsel to the Roll Global farming and food companies headquartered in Los Angeles, where he was responsible for global food regulation, trade, and public policy. He was also a visiting scholar and consultant to the United Nation’s Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) in Rome. Mr. Roberts is a member of the Steering Committee for the California Food Policy Council and the Los Angeles Food Policy Council’s Leadership Board. He chairs the Los Angeles Garden School Foundation. He also serves on the advisory board for the World Food Law Institute and is an expert panelist for Oxford Economics, Ltd., a publisher of Macro Trends Monitor for Food and Beverages. Mr. Roberts also serves as a Deputy Director of the FDA Research Center at East China University of Science and Technology in Shanghai, China where he lectures each year at the university’s law school. Mr. Roberts was raised in the food business — a small family farm, produce brokerage company, and other food entities. He enjoys reading the history of food, gardening, traveling, and spending time with family.
The Fall Conversation Series is open to all Georgetown University students, faculty, staff, and interested members of the public.