J.S.D., Stanford University, 1998
LL.B., University of Toronto, 1990
B.Sc., University of British Columbia, 1986
Employment Law and Policy
Contracts
Gillian Lester is Dean and Lucy G. Moses Professor of Law at Columbia Law School.
As Columbia Law’s 15th dean, she has led the faculty in recruiting more than two dozen full-time professors, establishing six new law clinics, and strengthening and expanding the Law School’s intellectual and scholarly depth.
Through landmark investments in student financial aid and loan repayment assistance—and initiatives such as the Max Berger ’71 Public Interest/Public Service Fellows Program—Dean Lester has dramatically expanded access to a Columbia legal education, as well as students’ ability to choose a career in the public interest. Under Dean Lester’s leadership, the Law School created a new Executive LL.M. in Global Business Law degree program and has undergone a transformation of its physical and digital campus infrastructure. In addition, she has spearheaded programs dedicated to lawyer-leadership, organizational character, science and technology policy, and constitutional democracy. Dean Lester has also guided the Law School in its successful five-year Campaign for Columbia Law, which exceeded its goal by raising more than $325 million.
Prior to joining Columbia in 2015, Dean Lester served on the faculty of the University of California, first at UCLA and later at Berkeley Law School, where she was interim dean from 2012 to 2014. Her scholarship focuses on income inequality, public finance policy, workplace law, and the design of social insurance laws and regulations. Dean Lester obtained a B.Sc. from the University of British Columbia, an LL.B. from the University of Toronto, and a J.S.D. from Stanford Law School.
Dean Lester is an elected member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and the American Law Institute. She served on the executive committee of the Association of American Law Schools from 2017 to 2020 and is a founding board member of the Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University. For her service on Columbia's COVID-19 Task Force, Dean Lester was recognized in 2022 with Columbia’s Nicholas Murray Butler Gold Medal for distinguished contributions in academic administration.
The book is an interdisciplinary investigation by lawyers and philosophers into the philosophical ideas, concepts, and principles that provide the foundation for the field of labour law or employment law. The book addresses doubts that have been expressed about whether a worker-protective labour law is needed at all, what should be regarded as the proper scope of the field in the light of developments such as the integration of work and home life by means of technology, the globalisation of the economy, and the precarious kinds of work that thrive in the gig economy.
Paying particular attention to political philosophy and theories of justice, the contributions focus on four themes:
I. Freedom, dignity, and human rights;
II. Distributive justice and exploitation;
III. Workplace democracy and self-determination;
IV. Social inclusion
