Lee Miller is Lecturing Fellow of Law at Duke Law School, where he teaches Food, Agriculture, and the Environment. Lee has expertise in environmental advocacy, clinical teaching, food and agriculture law and policy, legal and policy research, regulated industries, policy innovation, and coalition-building across food and farm movements in the U.S. His work has primarily focused on subnational climate change mitigation and resilience; adoption of regenerative agriculture systems; concentrated animal feeding operations (CAFOs), environmental justice and animal welfare; the federal farm bill; development of local and regional food systems; as well as food justice, food sovereignty and the right to food; open markets and fair competition; and economic justice for restaurant workers.
Most recently, Lee is leading a project on farmer flourishing at the Coherent Development Lab within the Center on Modernity in Transition. This work examines the conditions for and barriers to small-scale, sustainable farmers achieving “the good life,” and posits that any answer to the climate crisis must reintegrate urban and rural interests so that there are enough local farmers to provide resilient, nutritious, and affordable food to their communities.
Prior to his return to NC, at Harvard Law School Food Law and Policy Clinic he developed and coordinated a farm bill research project to advance agricultural sustainability, racial and economic justice, and rural resilience. The project spanned eight environmental, food, and public health clinics across the law schools at Harvard, Yale, Duke, UCLA, Pace and Vermont. Previously, at Yale Law School’s Environmental Law Clinic, Lee spearheaded a nationwide CAFO survey for the Natural Resources Defense Council that exposed information asymmetries between regulatory authorities and industry.
Lee has published pieces in the Yale Law Journal Forum, the American Journal of Public Health, the Journal of Food Law and Policy, and the Vermont Journal of Environmental Law, among others. He has co-authored numerous reports on the farm bill, CAFOs, and regenerative agriculture. Lee currently serves as Board Chair of the Academy of Food Law and Policy, the preeminent professional organization for scholars working in food law and policy. He is also on the board of the national Food Law Student Network.
Lee received his J.D. from Yale Law School, where he co-founded the Yale Food Law Society. He was awarded the post-graduate Jane Matilda Bolin Yale Law Journal Public Interest Fellowship and was an inaugural Exchange Fellow at the Stone Barns Center for Food and Agriculture in Pocantico Hills, NY. He received his Economics B.S. summa cum laude from Duke, where he also received his Masters of Environmental Management (MEM). He and his spouse raise sheep, bees and vegetables on their small farm outside of Hillsborough.