Harvard Food Law Society

If you could write your own food regulatory act, how would it differ from the current regime?

It would simplify the current one, but it would use many of the same terms. So many of the things that Congress adds to a statute are totally redundant and irrelevant. I keep making the point in class that the food safety law in England of 1263 does not improve one iota upon the food safety law of 2011. So it could be simplified, but it’s something that’s a product of history and it would be incredibly difficult to try to simplify it. People would just go berserk and say no, we have a jurisprudence, let’s stick with it.

Dubbed the "dean of the food and drug bar" by the Legal Times, Peter Hutt has been a leading food and drug law practitioner and scholar for almost half a century. Hutt has specialized in food and drug law at the Washington D.C. firm of Covington and Burlington since 1960, pausing only to serve as Chief Counsel of the FDA from 1971 to 1975. A prodigious writer, he is co-author of the widely used casebook Food and Drug Law: Cases and Materials. He has also taught Food and Drug Law at Harvard Law School since 1994. The Food Law Society recently interviewed Hutt about his career, how food law has evolved over the years, and his tenure as Chief Counsel. 

The Food Law Society recently interviewed Rebecca Goldberg, Staff Attorney for the Food and Drug Administration, Office of the Chief Counsel, about her work and the broader field of food law.

Becky Goldberg graduated from Harvard Law School in 2007.  In 2008-2009, she clerked for the Hon. Robert D. Sack of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit.  Following her clerkship, Becky began work at the FDA, where she focuses primarily on the regulation of food and dietary supplements.