Lev Menand is a fellow at the Roosevelt Institute, and an associate professor of law at Columbia Law School, where he teaches administrative law and the law of financial institutions. As a Roosevelt fellow, Menand researches US money and financial systems, including ways to enhance public access to and financial stability within those systems.
Lev has written extensively on the US monetary framework, banking and central banking, financial regulation, corporate governance, and the law of networks, platforms, and utilities. In 2018, he co-authored “Central Banking for All: A Public Option for Bank Accounts” for Roosevelt’s Great Democracy Initiative, which outlined a strategy for the Federal Reserve to offer the general public the option to hold digital currency accounts at the central bank. The FedAccounts proposal has been endorsed by the New York Times Editorial Board, and legislation to implement it has since been introduced in Congress.
In 2022, Lev published The Fed Unbound: Central Banking in a Time of Crisis, which recounts how the erosion of banking law and the rise of alternative forms of money have pushed the Fed to take on more and more responsibilities to keep the economy out of recession. He recently released, along with Morgan Ricks, Ganesh Sitaraman, and Shelley Welton, a new textbook on the law of Networks, Platforms, and Utilities—the first in the field in over 20 years.
Prior to joining academia, Lev served in the Treasury Department as senior adviser to the deputy secretary, worked at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York in the Research and Statistics Group and Supervision Group, and helped staff the Financial Stability Oversight Council.
Lev has a JD from Yale Law School and a BA from Harvard College.