Peter Edelman is the Carmack Waterhouse Professor of Law and Public Policy at Georgetown University Law Center, where he teaches constitutional law and poverty law and is Faculty Director of the Georgetown Center on Poverty and Inequality.
Peter has also served in all three branches of government. During President Clinton's first term, he was Counsellor to HHS Secretary Donna Shalala and Assistant Secretary for Planning & Evaluation. He has held numerous legislative positions, including serving as a Legislative Assistant to Senator Robert F. Kennedy. He was a Law Clerk on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit and worked in the U.S. Department of Justice as Special Assistant to Assistant Attorney General John Douglas.
Author of several books, his most recent is titled "Not a Crime to Be Poor: The Criminalization of America". He is the author of many articles on poverty, constitutional law, and issues pertaining to children and youth. His article in the Atlantic Monthly, titled "The Worst Thing Bill Clinton Has Done," received the Harry Chapin Media Award. Peter has chaired and served as a Board Member of many organizations and foundations and is currently Chair of the District of Columbia Access to Justice Commission and the National Center for Youth Law. Formerly, he was Board Chair of the American Constitution Society for Law and Policy and the Public Welfare Foundation, Board President Emeritus of the New Israel Fund, and a board member of the Center for Law and Social Policy, the Center for American Progress Action Fund and a half dozen other nonprofit organizations.
He has been a United States-Japan Leadership Program Fellow, was the J. Skelly Wright Memorial Fellow at Yale Law School and has received numerous honors and awards for his work.