Environmental Law Programming
Harvard Law School’s Environmental Law Program continues its impressive expansion this year. Under the direction of Professor Jody Freeman, the Program is in the midst of an exciting year marked by developments on several fronts. This year’s Environmental Law Fellow, Mina Makarious, continues to facilitate the Program’s progress.
The Environmental Law Program is please to announce several updates for the 2008-2009 academic year:
New additions to the Environmental Law & Policy Clinic. Under the leadership of Director and Clinical Professor Wendy Jacobs, the Environmental Law and Policy Clinic is offering students even more opportunities to do a wide variety of hands-on, environmental legal and policy work. Clinical offerings include local, national and international projects covering a broad range of environmental issues. For example, Clinic projects include development of a legal framework for the regulation of carbon capture and sequestration in China and U.S. preparation for the underground injection of carbon dioxide, submittal of comments to the Federal Trade Commission urging broader controls on "green" advertising, defending Kansas Department of Health and Environment Secretary Roderick Bremby in his precedent-setting permit denial for two new coal-fired power plants due to their impact on climate change, and analysis of the legal obligations resulting from scientific and medical studies of contamination of residences and their occupants. In addition to projects handled in-house under the direct supervision of Director Jacobs and staff attorney Shaun Goho, there are a variety of exciting externship opportunities offered through the Clinic. Placements are available with organizations including the Conservation Law Foundation, Ceres, U.S. EPA, Massachusetts Department of Environmental Protection, NRDC, and the Massachusetts Executive Office of Transportation.
The Environmental Law Program is pleased to welcome Shaun Goho to the Environmental Law and Policy Clinic as Staff Attorney. He graduated from Harvard Law School in 2001. Shaun has litigated a variety of environmental cases in state and federal court, with an emphasis on Endangered Species Act and water rights issues. To read more about Shaun’s background, click here.
A diverse array of environmental law courses for 2008-2009. In addition to the foundational Environmental Law course, to be taught by Professor Sunstein in the Spring, several courses and seminars will be taught by visiting professors and lecturers. Visiting Professor Richard Lazarus will teach an Advanced Environmental Law course as well as a course on Environmental Law and the Supreme Court; Professor David Wirth will teach International Environmental Law; and Professor Rossi will teach Energy Law. Lecturer on Law Daniel Kelly will teach a seminar on Land Use Puzzles and Nature Resource Dilemmas. And Professor Freeman will offer a Climate Change Reading Group.
Lecturer on Law Tyler Giannini will teach Human Rights and the Environment Advocacy Seminar in the Fall and Spring. Also this Spring, Clinical Director and Clinical Professor Wendy Jacobs will teach HLS' seminar on Environmental Law Practice: Skills, Methods and Controversies in the Spring. (See Descriptions of 2008-2009 Courses)
More broadly, we are in the midst of designing a comprehensive curriculum that will provide each HLS student an opportunity to engage with environmental issues. The Program will offer a wide selection of environmental law courses over every three-year period: students with little background in environmental law will have opportunities to be introduced to the field, and those with a dedicated interest will have opportunities to pursue advanced work. The new curriculum will guarantee students access to core courses like Environmental Law, Natural Resources Law, International Environmental Law, Climate Law, and Energy Law. Through these courses and other academic activities, the Program will prepare students for careers in environmental law and introduce those with plans in other fields to an area of cross-cutting interest. The program also supports environmental law scholarship by providing students access to a variety of faculty working on projects in the field.
Student Groups. The Environmental Law Society (ELS) and the Harvard Environmental Law Review, as well as our alumni network continue to thrive. The Program continues to work with ELS on both social and academic events for the 2008-2009 school year. In addition, we continue to compile fellowship and job resources for current students and young alumni. Please feel free to contact us to publicize opportunities.
We are also working to better connect our alumni with one another through online resources. To join our growing alumni community click hereor email us. To subscribe to our alumni listerv click here.
Fellowships. We have completed our first year of funding five fellowships of $10,000 each to support summer employment focused on public interest environmental issues. The Covey Fellowships fund students employed at NGOs, government agencies, and other public interest organizations working on issues such as climate change, land acquisition and management, pollution control, energy, carbon trading, environmental justice, or biodiversity conservation.
Junior Scholar Workshop. HLS continues its sponsorship of the first workshop in the nation for junior scholars in environmental law, the first of which was held in June 2007. The workshop is a biannual, bicoastal effort co-sponsored by the ELP at HLS, Boalt Hall, and UCLA. This workshop is designed to support the academic work of the next generation of scholars in the field of environmental law. Participants in the workshop are invited to submit work falling within the general field, which is broadly defined to include property, administrative law, and constitutional law, among other topics. Senior scholars in the field then critique and advise on the papers in a series of discussions over the course of a day-long conversation.
Conferences. Following the success of our spring 2006 conference on New Prospects for Climate Change Regulation, which featured leading scholars and policymakers (including Senator Jeff Bingaman, D-NM), we hosted another high-level event on the design of carbon trading regimes in the states, with particular attention to carbon offsets. The event was co-sponsored by The Harvard Center for the Environment and the Nicholas Institute for Environmental Policy Solutions at Duke University, as part of our effort to convene interdisciplinary and inter-university events that are of scholarly interest and also policy relevant. Our panelists and invitees included legislative staffers, offset market participants, state officials, representatives of the banking sector, and academics. For a conference agenda, please click here.