Seth Harris

Seth D. Harris, Distinguished Professor of the Practice, Doctoral Program in Law & Policy  

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sethdharris/ 

Seth D. Harris is a Distinguished Professor of Practice in the Doctoral Program of Law & Policy program. He is also a Senior Fellow at Northeastern University’s Burnes Center for Social Change. He teaches the following law courses: law & legal reasoning, congress and legislatures; law & legal reasoning, the executive branch; and law & legal reasoning; and the supreme court and the judiciary. Each of these courses seeks to introduce students to the role of law in policy making and implementation and how these three branches of government use legal reasoning, lawmaking, law interpretation, and law administration to impose, influence, deter, or block policies.  

Professional Background:  

Harris served as the Deputy Assistant to the President for Labor and the Economy and Deputy Director of the Biden White House’s National Economic Council. 

He served as Acting U.S. Secretary of Labor (and a member of President Obama’s Cabinet) and Deputy U.S. Secretary of Labor from 2009 to 2014. Between the Obama and Biden Administrations, he was an attorney in Washington, D.C., a Visiting Professor at Cornell University’s Institute for Public Affairs and School of Industrial & Labor Relations, and a public expert on work, workers, workplaces, the economy and labor market issues, government leadership, and government performance. 

He was a Professor of Law and the Director of the Labor & Employment Law Program at New York Law School from 2000 to 2009. He taught Leadership in Public Affairs for Cornell graduate and undergraduate students and created a certificate program in Public-Sector Leadership that trained hundreds of public-sector practitioners.  

  
Academic Background    

Juris Doctor, 1990, New York University School of Law, member of the Order of the Coif and editor-in-chief of the Review of Law & Social Change. 

Bachelor of Science in Industrial & Labor Relations, 1983, Cornell University’s School of Industrial & Labor Relations 

Research Focus Areas:   
  
Worker Power, Skills-Based Talent Management, Labor and Employment Law & Policy, Artificial Intelligence and Worker Organizing    
  

Publications   
  
Books:   
1. Beth Simone Noveck, Dane Gambrell, Mona Sloane, Anirudh Dinesh, Seth Harris & David Dembo, Innovations in Labour Law Enforcement and Inspection: A Field Scan by The Governance Lab (ILO 2019).    
2. Seth D. Harris, Joseph E. Slater, Anne M. Lofaso, and Charlotte Garden, Modern Labor Relations in the Private Sector and Public Sector: Cases and Materials (Lexis Publishing 3d ed. 2020; 2d ed. 2016; 1st ed. 2013).    
3. Kenneth G. Dau-Schmidt, Seth D. Harris, and Orly Lobel, eds., Labor and Employment Law and Economics (Edward Elgar Pub. 2009).    
4. James P. Baker, David B. Mixner, and Seth D. Harris, The State of Disability in America: An Evaluation of the Disability Experience by the Life Without Limits Project (UCP 2007).     
  
Book Chapters:   
1. Seth D. Harris and Michael Ashley Stein, Workplace Disability, in Labor and Employment Law and Economics (Kenneth G. Dau-Schmidt, Seth D. Harris, and Orly Lobel, eds.) (Edward Elgar Pub. 2009).    
2. Seth D. Harris, The Mis-Directed Debate Over the Economics of Disabilities Accommodations, in Human Resources Economics and Public Policy: Essays in Honor of Vernon M. Briggs, Jr. (Charles J. Whalen, ed.) (W.E. Upjohn Inst. 2009).    
  
Articles:   
1. Seth D. Harris, Increasing Employment for Older Workers with Effective Protections Against Employment Discrimination, 30 Cornell J. L. & Pub. Pol™y 199 (2020), also available at https://www.brookings.edu/research/increasing-employment-for-older-workers-with-effective-protections-against-employment-discrimination/ (Brookings Inst™n, Nov. 2020).    
2. Seth D. Harris, Workers, Benefits and Protections in the U.S. Gig Economy, Global L. Rev. (Sept. 2018) (Chinese), also available at 3. https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3198170.     
3. Seth D. Harris and Alan B. Krueger, Is your Uber driver an ˜employee™ or an ˜independent contractor™?, 20 Perspectives on Work 30 (Lab. & Emplt. Res. Ass™n 2016)    
4. Seth D. Harris and Alan B. Krueger, The Gig Economy: How to Modernize the Rules of Work to Fit the Times, 18 Milken Inst. Rev. 16 (Q2 2016).    
5. Seth D. Harris and Alan B. Krueger, A Proposal for Modernizing Labor Laws for 21st-Century Work: The ˜Independent Worker™, The Hamilton Project, Brookings Institution (Dec. 2015).    
6. Seth D. Harris, Managing for Social Change: Improving Labor Department Performance in a Partisan Era, 117 W. Va. L. Rev. 987 (Spring 2015).    
7. Seth D. Harris, Disabilities Accommodations, Transaction Costs, and Mediation: Evidence from the EEOC™s Mediation Program, 13 Harv. Negot. L. Rev. 1  (Winter 2008).    
8. Seth D. Harris, Law, Economics, and Accommodations in the Internal Labor Market, 10 U. Pa. J. Bus. & Lab. L. 1 (Fall 2007).    
9. Seth D. Harris, Don™t Mourn ” Reorganize!: An Introduction to the Next Wave Organizing Conference Volume, 49 N.Y.L.Sch. L. Rev. 303 (2005-2006)    
10. Seth D. Harris, Innocence and The Sopranos, 49 N.Y. L. Sch L. Rev. 577 (2004-2005).    
11. Seth D. Harris, Introduction: Understanding the Context for the ˜Coehlo Challenge™, 48 N.Y. L. Sch. L. Rev. 711 (2004).    
12. Seth D. Harris, Re-Thinking the Economics of Discrimination: US Airways v. Barnett, the ADA, and the Application of Internal Labor Markets Theory, 89  Iowa L. Rev. 123 (Oct. 2003).    
13. Seth D. Harris, Coase™s Paradox and the Inefficiency of Permanent Strike Replacements, 80 Wash. U. L.Q. 1185 (2002) – Winner, 2003 Otto L. Walter Distinguished Writing Award, Best Law Review Article    
14. Seth D. Harris, Conceptions of Fairness and the Fair Labor Standards Act, 18 Hofstra Lab. & Emp. L. J. 19 (Fall 2000).    
  
  
Seth D. Harris, Note, Permitting Prejudice to Govern: Equal Protection, Military Deference, and the Exclusion of Lesbians and Gay Men from the Military, 17 N.Y.U. Rev. L. Soc. Change 171 (1989-1990).    
  
Additional Information   
  
Seth Harris is a regular contributor to Power At Work, https://poweratwork.us. Power At Work “blogcasts” can be found on the Burnes Center for Social Change’s You Tube channel as well as Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and Overcast.