Michael Roberts

Michael T. Roberts, is the Lead Instructor in the Food Regulation in Asia course. He has a unique background in food law and policy that blends together academic and private practice.  He is well versed in a broad range of legal and policy issues from farm to fork in local, national, and global food supply systems.  He is a prolific author, having contributed to books and having written several articles on food regulation, global governance in food, trade, and policy issues.  He is an Adjunct Law Professor at UCLA Law School, where he teaches a Consumer Food Law and Policy seminar course and a Guest Law Professor at East China University of Science and Technology Law School in Shanghai, China.  He serves on the advisory boards for the World Food Law Institute and the National Agricultural Law Center.  He has taught summer food-related law courses at Cambridge University in the UK and Drake University School of Law in Des Moines, Iowa.  He has guest lectured on food-law subjects at various law schools, including Stanford, Georgetown, Tennessee, and Kansas, and at international conferences in Belgium, China, Italy, Romania, and the U.S.  

Mr. Roberts currently serves as Special Counsel to the Roll Law Group LLP, a law firm that exclusively represents Roll Global Corporation, a private holding company headquartered in Los Angeles, and its farming and food companies who are global leaders in their respective product lines, employing more than 4,000 people world-wide. Mr. Roberts joined Roll in August 2008, where he is responsible for global food regulation, trade, and public policy.  He has offices in Los Angeles and Washington D.C

Mr. Roberts also is Director of the Center for Food Law and Policy, a newly formed non-profit organization that advances thoughtful policymaking through innovative legal scholarship to help consumers make informed food choices. He was also recently appointed to the Los Angeles Food Policy Council.

Mr. Roberts began his experience in food law when in 2000, he took a sabbatical from private practice to earn an LL.M. in agricultural law at the University of Arkansas and upon returning to his firm became the first chair of the Lex Mundi (world’s largest association of private law firms) international Agribusiness practice group. In 2002, Mr. Roberts accepted a position on the faculty at the University of Arkansas School of Law, where he was appointed a Research Law Professor and Director of the National Agricultural Law Center.  In 2006, he became of counsel in Washington D.C. with Venable LLP, as a member of the firm’s food and agricultural law practice group, and continued to teach and publish.  In 2008, prior to joining Roll Law Group, Mr. Roberts was a visiting legal scholar with and consultant to the United Nation’s Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) in Rome

Courses:
     Lead Instructor:  Food Regulation in Asia
     Guest Instructor:  International Food Law and Regulation