Law Schools in the Public Interest: Environmental Programs on the West Coast and in the Southwest

Environmental law programs on the West Coast and in the Southwest — basically, the states in the Ninth Circuit — are very active in public service.  Here are some examples:

• A continuing legal education program for lawyers on energy and environment.
• A natural resources clinic that participates in administrative proceedings before federal lands agencies.
• A clinic that has litigated cases involving the protection of a national park, the regulation of invasive species discharges from ships, the preservation of an Indian sacred site, and the conservation of an endangered tortoise.
• Another clinic that specializes with great success on issues of environmental justice.
• An Ocean and Coastal Law Center.
• A clinical project that works directly with communities impacted by climate change to create adaptation assessments and identify legal and policy tools to further climate justice goals.
• A center that provides nearly all of the law student assistants for a major electric power agency, working on a wide range of energy and environmental issues.
• An Environmental Dispute Resolution Program that promotes collaboration, mediation, and other dispute resolution processes as a means to address contemporary environmental conflicts.
• A clinic focusing on the unique needs of island communities.

This list is strikingly incomplete — for instance, it doesn’t include UCLA or Berkeley since it seemed unfair to use the limited space to tout our own programs.

environmental law clinics, environmental law programs, public service