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When William Froehlich began his teaching career at George Mason University, the school boasted a little more than 10,000 students and a small handful of buildings on the Fairfax Campus—the only campus at the time.
Flash-forward 47 years to today and the school has more than 40,000 students on four main campuses, making it the largest public university in Virginia. Amid all that change, one thing has remained constant: Froehlich is still teaching George Mason students, bringing his expertise as a longtime energy regulator and an administrative judge with the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission to students studying at the Schar School of Policy and Government.
Froehlich, whose career in the U.S. government is closing in on five decades, was not always confident his career would be in law. After earning his undergraduate degree in political science at SUNY Binghamton, he enrolled in a masters teaching program and became a student teaching intern for seventh grade civics in rural New York.
“During that experience,” he said, “I realized I didn’t want to be a middle school teacher, and I applied to law school.”
After graduating from Brooklyn Law School, Froehlich held a number of senior executive service positions at the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC), including director of the Office of Administrative Litigation, special counsel at the Office of Enforcement, assistant general counsel for gas and oil litigation, as well as director of the Office of Enforcement’s Financial Regulation Division.
One of the most memorable chapters of Froehlich’s work was traveling to some 20 newly independent Soviet countries in the early 2000s as a United States Agency for International Development (USAID) public utility law specialist, selected by the Department of State. Through that “fun” experience, as the judge refers to it, he spoke with many leaders and legislators and worked with members of Ukraine’s parliament, the Verkhovna Rada. He traveled to Ukraine four times for USAID.
He has also lectured in China and Eastern Europe and has taught at the International Law Institute in Washington, D.C., and at the National Judicial College in Reno, Nevada.
After nearly five decades as an adjunct at George Mason, the most rewarding part of teaching, he said, is being a mentor.
“Every semester, there are one or two students who you really connect with or remember,” he said.
He finds it particularly rewarding when he hears from students he taught years back and learns about their careers in government, law, politics, or law enforcement.
Today, judges and courts in the United States are constantly in the news. Almost every decision of any administrative agency or cabinet-level department is challenged in the courts. Judges at all levels must decide their cases based solely on the law, precedent, and the evidence presented.
“I’ve never been pressured politically in making a decision [on a case],” said Froehlich, who is an administrative judge on the NRC’s Atomic Safety and Licensing Board Panel, the independent, trial-level court for nuclear matters. The goal, he said, was always to find “the best public interest outcome that you can.”
When discussing the current political climate and navigating the legal system under the Trump administration, Froehlich said, “What I've been teaching in GOVT 452 is exactly what we took on the road to almost 20 Eastern European countries. That’s because they wanted to set up [independent regulatory] systems like [in the U.S.]. They admired the checks and balances. It's just not the same [anymore].”
Still, he said, “I’m asking the students to approach [today’s issues] with an open mind and with a historical perspective. … I’m hoping that the students who go into public service will try to keep the public interest in the forefront [and] try to put politics aside. And that, I think, is going to be harder for the current and future graduates.”