Main content

Michael J. Broyde

Professor of Law, Berman Projects Director at Center for the Study of Law and Religion
Contact

Areas of Expertise

Jewish Law, Law & Religion, Alternative Dispute Resolution, Family Law, Professional Responsibility

Courses

Family Law I, Family Law II, Professional Responsibility, Bankruptcy Law, Alternative Dispute Resolution

Biography

Michael J. Broyde is professor of law at Emory University School of Law, where he is a senior fellow and Berman Projects Director at the Center for the Study of Law and Religion and a core faculty member of the Tam Institute for Jewish Studies. He previously served as director of the SJD Program and has held a number of leadership roles within Emory’s Center for the Study of Law and Religion.

Broyde’s scholarship focuses on law and religion, Jewish law and ethics, family law, arbitration, and comparative religious law. His work examines how religious legal systems interact with secular law, with particular attention to dispute resolution, bioethics, and questions of identity, authority, and obligation in modern legal systems. In recent years, his research has expanded to include emerging issues at the intersection of law and technology, including artificial intelligence, digital identity, and the regulation of online harms.  He has worked extensively in bioethics, arbitration law and much more

A member of the Emory faculty since the early 1990s, Broyde has taught widely across the law school and university and has been deeply involved in mentoring graduate and doctoral students. He has also been a visiting professor at leading institutions in the United States and abroad, including Stanford Law School, and was a Senior Fulbright Scholar at Hebrew University of Jerusalem.  He also teaches Advanced Jewish Law at Columbia Law School every Fall.

Broyde is the author or editor of numerous books and more than 250 scholarly articles and book chapters as well as hundreds of opeds. His recent books include Splitting Hairs: The History, Law, and Future of Jewish Laws of Modesty and Women’s Head Covering, Jewish Law and International Law: Sovereignty and Exogenous Authority in a Transnational World, four volumes of the “Finding America” series in the Bible published by Wipf and Stock with a fifth forthcoming, as well asSetting the Table: An Introduction to the Jurisprudence of Rabbi Yechiel Mikhel Epstein’s Arukh HaShulhan. His earlier books include major works on Jewish law, religious arbitration, family law, and legal ethics, including The Codification of Jewish Law and an Introduction to the Jurisprudence of the Mishna Berura, The Pursuit of Justice and Jewish Law, and Marriage, Divorce, and the Abandoned Wife in Jewish Law. His recent articles address arbitration, Jewish law, religious liberty, family law, artificial intelligence, digital identity, and the governance of online platforms.

In addition to his academic work, Broyde is an ordained rabbi and has served as a dayan and director in the Beth Din of America and the Founding Rabbi of the Young Israel synagogue in Atlanta. He served on boards of many schools and organizations in Atlanta, including more than 15 years as the chair of the medical ethics committee of Weinstein Hospice in Atlanta.

His professional experience bridges legal academia and religious adjudication, shaping his distinctive approach to comparative law and dispute resolution.

Through his teaching, writing, and institutional leadership, Broyde has been a leading figure in the study of law and religion, contributing to both scholarly discourse and broader conversations about the role of religious legal traditions in contemporary society. He also serves as an expert witness in a number of matters.

He received a juris doctor from New York University and published a note on its law review. He also clerked for Judge Leonard I. Garth of the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit. 

Broyde is married to labor lawyer Channah S. Broyde, who worked in the United States Department of Labor, Office of the Solicitor for many years and now works in private practice.  He as four children and a many grandchildren.

Education: New York University School of Law, JD 1988; Yeshiva University: Rabbi Isaac Elchanan Theological Seminary, Ordination 1991; Yeshiva University: Yeshiva College, BA, cum laude 1984.