Robert H. Freilich

Lecturer in Law

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Room: 306
Robert H. Freilich is a Special Land Use Partner in the law firm of Freilich & Popowitz, LLP, and is considered the nation’s leading planning, development, zoning and land use litigation attorney. He joins USC Law in Fall 2009, where he will teach Business Organizations.

Mr. Freilich has represented both the public and private sectors and has developed and implemented sustainable green land use plans and systems for over 250 cities, counties and states from San Diego to Boston, and Honolulu to the Florida Keys. He has specialized in obtaining government approval of complex mixed use development projects for the public and private sectors. He has appeared as an expert planning witness in over 60 cases nationwide and was appointed as Special Master by the U.S. District Court in the Western District of Missouri in U.S. v. Conservation Chemical Co., the most complex superfund case in the nation; and has litigated over 100 cases and appeals including the U.S. Supreme Court, federal courts of appeal and state supreme courts.

Mr. Freilich is the National Editor of THE URBAN LAWYER, the national quarterly journal on state and local government law of the American Bar Association; Director of the Annual Planning and Zoning Institute of the American Center For National and International Law; Past-Chair of the Planning and Law Division of the American Planning Association; serves on the Advisory Board of the LAND USE AND ENVIRONMENT LAW REVIEW; and is a member of the American Institute of Certified Planners, the Rocky Mountain Land Use Institute and the Urban Land Institute.

He is the author of: "From Sprawl to Sustainable Growth, Successful Planning, Law and Environmental Systems" (American Bar Assoc. 2009); "The 21st Century Land Development Code" (American Planning Association, 2008); and the leading planning and law casebook in the field: Cases and Materials on Land Use, 5th ed. (West Publishing Company 2008).  He has also authored 10 other books, over 60 articles and spoken to over 200 conferences nationwide.

Mr. Freilich received his A.B. from the University of Chicago, holds a J.D. from Yale Law School and M.I.A., LL.M. and J.S.D. degrees from Columbia University in New York. In 1968, he became Hulen Professor of Law in Urban Affairs and Planning at the University of Missouri.  He has served as Visiting Professor of Law at Harvard Law School (1984-1985), the London School of Economics (1974-1975), and the University of Miami School Of Law (1996-1997).  Mr. Freilich is a member of the California, Florida, Missouri, New York and Texas Bars.