Howard Epstein was born in Halifax in 1949. He is the son of the late Leah and Ray Epstein, and brother to Linda and Ruth Epstein.
Howard attended Tower Road School, the Halifax Grammar School, and Queen Elizabeth High School, completing high school at age fifteen, having skipped three grades. He studied at university in Ottawa (Carleton), the United Kingdom (Birmingham), and in Halifax (Dalhousie) where he studied law.
Howard has been a member of the Nova Scotia Barristers' Society since 1973. He has worked in Ottawa for the federal Department of Justice, and been an executive director of a variety of organizations. Always interested in scholarship and teaching, he has taught at five universities: Carleton, Osgoode Hall Law School (at York), Acadia, Saint Mary's, and at Dalhousie's Schulich School of Law.
He is a recognized expert on the law of land-use and land-use planning, the subject he taught at the Dalhousie Law School for almost twenty years as an adjunct faculty member, and about which he has published a number of scholarly and popular articles. He is a long-time environmentalist and served as Executive Director of the Ecology Action Centre (EAC), the province's principal citizens' environmental organization. He has represented the EAC and other non-governmental organizations in environmental assessment hearings, before regulatory tribunals, and in court.
In 1994 Howard was elected to Halifax City Council and then, following creation of Halifax Regional Municipality in 1996, to the amalgamated municipal council. In 1998 he was elected as MLA (Member of the Legislative Assembly) for the constituency of Halifax Chebucto as a member of Nova Scotia's New Democratic Party. He was re-elected in 1999, 2003, 2006, and 2009 but did not run in the 2013 election, choosing instead to retire from electoral politics.