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Professor Eric M. Freedman has two primary areas of academic interest. One is constitutional law and history, with a special emphasis on the history of the Revolutionary period, First Amendment topics, and separation of powers, including remedies for Presidential misconduct. The second is litigation-centered and includes the fields of civil and criminal procedure and strategy, with a focus on the death penalty and habeas corpus.
He has testified on these matters before Congress and other legislative bodies, and is regularly quoted in the media.
Professor Freedman is the author of Habeas Corpus: Rethinking the Great Writ of Liberty (2003) and of Making Habeas Work: A Legal History (2018), both publications of New York University Press. Together with Professor Monroe H. Freedman, he edited Group Defamation and Freedom of Speech: The Relationship between Language and Violence (1995), an anthology based on a conference held at the Law School.
He has been chosen three times in university-wide competition to deliver the Distinguished Faculty Lecture on aspects of his constitutional law scholarship, most recently in 2025. He was designated the John DeWitt Gregory Scholar for 2018-19 to pursue his habeas research.
Professor Freedman is actively involved in the continuing professional education of lawyers and judges, and in providing pro bono litigation advice and representation. In addition to many projects involving the death penalty, he has worked extensively on issues arising from detentions at Guantanamo and other aspects of the campaign against terrorism as well as more recent challenges to the rule of law.
Professor Freedman serves as the Reporter for the ABA's Guidelines for the Appointment and Performance of Defense Counsel in Capital Cases, which were released at a conference at the Law School and are regularly relied upon by courts at all levels. He is a recipient of the Dybwad Humanitarian Award of the American Association on Mental Retardation for his work in exonerating an innocent death row inmate in Virginia.
He is a life member of the American Law Institute, a life fellow of the American Bar Foundation, and senior counsel to the National Coalition Against Censorship.
Professor Freedman formerly chaired the New York City Bar Association's Committee on Civil Rights, and has served on its Executive Committee as well as its committees on capital punishment, communications law, and legal history.
Before coming to Hofstra, Professor Freedman was a litigator with a major New York City law firm, where he pursued both a general commercial practice and numerous pro bono matters. Previously, he was a law clerk to Judge Irving R. Kaufman of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, studied abroad on a Fulbright Scholarship, and served as an editor of the Yale Law Journal.