Education
1973 JD Harvard Law School
1970 AB Columbia College (Economics)
2021 M.Phil. CUNY Graduate Center
Bio
Dan Feldman teaches Oversight & Investigation, Ethics & Accountability, and Administrative Law. In 2019 the MPA faculty elected him as Program Director for its Inspection & Oversight track through June 2021. He was first elected to the New York State Assembly in 1980, and served as a member of the Legislature from 1981 through 1998, writing over 140 state laws, including New York’s Megan’s Law and Organized Crime Control Act. As Correction Committee chair for twelve years, he led some of the first efforts to repeal the Rockefeller drug laws. For six years thereafter, as a senior member of Attorney General Eliot Spitzer’s staff, he exposed HUD’s 203k mortgage loan guarantee scandal and led the investigation of UnumProvident’s disability insurance scam. Until his full-time appointment at John Jay, he worked as Special Counsel for Law & Policy to New York State Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli. Feldman's fourth book, Tales from the Sausage Factory: Making Laws in New York State, with co-author Gerald Benjamin, was published by SUNY Press in 2010, and his fifth book, The Art of the Watchdog: Fighting Fraud, Waste, Abuse and Corruption in Government, with co-author David Eichenthal, also by SUNY Press, in 2013. His most recent book, Administrative Law: The Sources and Limits of Government Agency Power, was published by Sage/CQ Press in 2016. He also wrote numerous scholarly articles, and served as Perspective and Commentary Editor for Public Administration Review from 2013 through 2017. His current research involves government oversight, administrative theory, and legal philosophy.
JJC Affiliations
Professional Memberships
Fellow of the National Academy of Public Administration
Member of the Bar Association of the City of New York
Course Taught
PAD 731, PAD 739, PAD 740, PAD 741, PAD 758
Languages spoken/fluent in
Scholarly Work
Books
ADMINISTRATIVE LAW: THE SOURCES AND LIMITS OF GOVERNMENT AGENCY POWER, Sage/CQ Press, Thousand Oaks, California 2016.
THE ART OF THE WATCHDOG: FIGHTING FRAUD, WASTE, ABUSE AND CORRUPTION IN GOVERNMENT, SUNY Press, with co-author David Eichenthal, Albany, N.Y., 2014.
TALES FROM THE SAUSAGE FACTORY: MAKING LAWS IN NEW YORK STATE, SUNY Press, with co-author Gerald Benjamin, Albany, N.Y., 2010
Chapter
The New York State Office of the Attorney General, in New York State Government Handbook, Gerald Benjamin, ed., Oxford University Press, New York, 2012
Article
The Inspector General: Political Culture and Constraints on Effective Oversight, 19(6) Public Integrity 593-606, Nov./Dec. 2017, http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/10999922.2017.1309187; http://orcid.org/0000-0002-1123-2216
Honors and Awards
Elected Fellow of the National Academy of Public Administration, 2016; Williston Prize, Harvard Law School, 1971; New York City Urban Fellowship, 1969-1970
Research Summary
Dan Feldman exposed and corrected fraud, waste, corruption, and mismanagement at the City, State, and Federal levels in appointed and elected office over several decades, often while writing about and teaching the "watchdog" techniques and principles he was using. In recent years, he extended his study to overseas cases, publishing articles and a book chapter discussing anti-corruption work in Italy and in Armenia.
At present, however, his research focuses on a very different topic, an argument for the primacy of Lon Fuller's analytical jurisprudence, as opposed to the legal philosophies of H.L.A. Hart or Ronald Dworkin.
