Environmental and natural resources law is one of the most rapidly changing fields in the legal profession. Thirty years ago, there was very little formal environmental regulation in this area. But today, there are myriad state, federal, and international laws seeking to curb environmental pollution and protect resources.
Uniquely situated in the heart of Silicon Valley and part of one of the world's preeminent research universities, Stanford's award-winning Environmental and Natural Resources Law & Policy Program (ENRLP) has earned its reputation as a leading center for education and research in this dynamic field. Indeed, with a nationally renowned faculty praised for its cutting-edge research and practice, Stanford's Environmental and Natural Resources Law & Policy Program has revolutionized environmental education.
Our students develop their skills in analyzing and solving problems through situational case studies, learn effective teamwork through Stanford's Environmental Law Clinic, and master mediation and multiparty negotiation techniques through in-class simulations. Our clinical programs and courses foster collaborative solutions to real-world problems. Many of our courses involve other Stanford departments, and all integrate multidisciplinary materials. The program also provides access to a broad spectrum of practitioners, regulators, and academics in Silicon Valley and beyond, and to hands-on involvement in research, environmental advocacy, and collaborative dialogues. Beyond the classroom, our students pursue a wide array of extracurricular activities, such as membership in the Stanford Environmental Law Journal and the Environmental Law Society.
Stanford Law School graduates pursue a variety of distinguished careers in environmental and natural resources law. Our alumni currently hold positions—covering the spectrum from staff attorney to executive leadership—at national environmental organizations, federal and state agencies, the White House, major corporations, law firms with strong environmental practices, and academia.
Students interested in environmental law will find Stanford, a relatively small school of about 550 students and a faculty of more than 40 permanent members, to be a warm and congenial place with an emphasis on mutual respect, civility, and the open exchange of ideas. Committed to being a "community of discourse", Stanford is diverse in backgrounds, outlooks, and aspirations—a diversity essential to a first-rate legal education.
The program's portfolio of situational case studies presents narratives of real-life events and asks students to identify and analyze the relevant legal, social, business, ethical, and scientific issues involved. Playing the role of protagonist in each case study—such as a private attorney counseling a biotechnology company facing hazardous waste issues, or a federal official seeking to develop an effective fishery management plan—students formulate appropriate strategies for achieving workable solutions to conflicts, then discuss and debate their recommendations in class. This interactive approach to learning bolsters students' acquisition of skills in critical areas: factual investigation, legal research, counseling, persuasive oral communication, and recognition and resolution of ethical dilemmas, to name a few. The full text of these case studies can be found on the Law School's case studies website.
Stanford Law School graduates pursue a variety of distinguished careers in environmental and natural resources law. Our alumni currently hold positions in national environmental organizations, federal and state agencies, the White House, major corporations, law firms with strong environmental practices, and academia.
Our Career Placement PDF showcases the various organizations where Stanford graduates have worked or are currently working in environmental and natural resources law positions.
Students at Stanford Law School enjoy not only the diverse opportunities of the Environmental and Natural Resources Law & Policy Program, but also a number of affiliated programs throughout the University, including:
The Stanford Fisheries Policy Project is a unique interdisciplinary research project based at Stanford Law School. Established in 2000 as a joint Fisheries Policy Project venture between Stanford's Hopkins Marine Station and the Law School, the Fisheries Policy Project now includes faculty and researchers from many departments across campus. Current projects include a comprehensive study of the U.S. fisheries management system and an investigation into the interactions between salmon aquaculture and salmon fisheries.
This seminar will provide students with the opportunity to examine and critique current research and work in the environmental and natural resources field focused on climate change. Although it is open to all second and third year law students and graduate students in other disciplines, the seminar is designed especially for those with a particular interest in the field who wish to be abreast of current and cutting-edge issues, work, and ideas. In a majority of the classes, academics from various disciplines, practitioners, and policy makers will visit to discuss their current research or work. [ Winter 2008 Syllabus ]
| Richard Roos-Collins Instructor | By appointment 415 693.3000 ext. 103 rrcollins@n-h-i.org * You may also contact Richard through the workshop teaching assistant, Maggie Peloso. |
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| Meg Caldwell Instructor | Meg is the instructor for the writing option. Office Hours: by appointment. Law School, Room 243 650 723.4057 megc@stanford.edu |
| Maggie Peloso Teaching Assistant |
610 247.9180 mpeloso@stanford.edu |
Tuesday, January 8, 4:15 – 6:15 p.m. (Law School 271)
Organization of Workshop. Overview of Water Rights, Water Quality, and Related Policies in California and other Western States
Richard Roos-Collins
Director of Legal Services, Natural Heritage Institute
Monday, January 14, 4:15 – 6:15 p.m. (Law School 271)
Liquid Gold: Solving the World's Freshwater Sustainability Challenges
Professor Buzz Thompson
Stanford Law School
Tuesday, January 22, 7:30 pm (Kresge Auditorium) in lieu of class on Monday, January 21
The World's Water
Peter Gleick
President, Pacific Institute for Studies in Development
Monday, January 28, 4:15 – 6:15 p.m. (Law School 271)
Global Warming and Other Developments in the Regulation of Water Rights
Art Baggett
Member, State of California Water Resources Control Board
Monday, February 4, 4:15 – 6:15 p.m. (Law School 271)
The Past and Future of Water Supply and Quality Regulation in the San Francisco Bay Delta
Joe Grindstaff
Deputy Secretary, California Resources Agency
Monday, February 11, 4:15 – 6:15 p.m. (Law School 271)
The Future of Environmental Protection for Aquatic Ecosystems
Brian Gray
Professor, Hastings College of Law
Tuesday, February 19, 7:30 pm (Kresge Auditorium) in lieu of class on Monday, February 18
International Water
Jenna Davis, Scott Fendorf, Scott Rozelle, Buzz Thompson (moderator)
Monday, February 25, 4:15 – 6:15 p.m. (Law School 271)
Water Supply Reliability in a World of Shortages
Tim Quinn
Executive Director, Association of California Water Agencies (tentative)
Monday, March 3, 4:15 – 6:15 p.m. (Law School 271)
Applying Science to Law in Complex Aquatic Ecosystems
Jay Lund
Professor, Center for Watershed Sciences, UC Davis (tentative)
Tuesday, March 11, 7:30 pm (Kresge Auditorium) in lieu of class on Monday, March 10
Water in the West
David Freyberg, David Kennedy, Roger Knoll, Jeff Mount, Jeff Koseff (moderator)
Each year, Stanford Law School hosts special events addressing environmental and natural resources law and policy issues. For instance, the student-run Environmental Law Society arranges a variety of speakers and panels, including a yearly panel on career opportunities in environmental law and policy. The following is a cross-section of forums, conferences, panels, and workshops Stanford has hosted in recent years.
On November 6-7, 2008, the Georgetown Environmental Law & Policy Institute at Georgetown University Law Center and Stanford Law School's Environmental and Natural Resources Law & Policy Program will host the 11th Annual Conference on Litigating Takings and Related Legal Challenges to Land Use and Environmental Regulation. [ Details ]
Made possible by a generous gift from the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, in memory of Stanford alumnus Robert Minge Brown, to provide long-term support for the program. The lectureship is awarded annually to a distinguished scholar, policy maker, or lawyer in the environmental law field for his or her innovative work in environmental policy. The first recipient of this lectureship was former U.S. Senator Timothy Wirth, President of the United Nations Foundation. Subsequent lecturers have been Dr. Sylvia Earle, Explorer in Residence with the National Geographic Society and former Chief Scientist for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA); Bruce Babbitt, former United States Secretary of Interior and two-term governor of Arizona; and Michael Bean, Chair of the Wildlife Program at Environmental Defense.
ENRLP invites a dozen or more leading academics, policy makers, and scientists each year to speak to the Environmental Workshop seminar, the oldest of its kind in the country.
In concert with the Environmental Law Society, ENRLP sponsors informal brown bag lunches, lectures, and roundtables for students, faculty, and the community to discuss pressing current events and policy issues, to expand students' exposure to both traditional and nontraditional careers in the field, and to take advantage of the world-class scientists, policy makers, and advocates who visit Stanford University.
The Environmental Law Society hosts a winter/spring film festival to screen compelling and entertaining documentaries with environmental or land use themes. Commentaries by the film maker or ENRLP faculty follow the screenings.
On April 13 and 14, 2007, Stanford Law School hosted a two-day workshop exploring options for financing community-based conservation of working land. Invitees included leading community conservation advocates, land trust professionals, finance professionals, and academics with expertise in community-based natural resource management. The workshop focused on financial topics related to municipalities and local non-profit corporations acquiring forests, rangeland, and irrigation systems for conservation and continued production. [ Details ]
The March 10 to 12, 2001, National Association of Environmental Law Societies (NAELS) conference had two components: one which focused on improving environmental law societies and building NAELS itself, and the other which focused on ocean law. The "Sea Change" conference name reflected a bold new vision that sees NAELS not only as an organization that holds an annual conference for the purpose of educating its members, but also as an organization that shapes, supports, and unifies America's next generation of environmental lawyers.
On November 16 and 17, 2000, a group of three dozen legal academics, scientists, policy makers, business representatives, and environmental representatives met at Stanford University to discuss how ecosystem services might be used to help promote the preservation and restoration of watersheds. Law School faculty present included Professors Robert Fischman, J. B. Ruhl, James Salzman, and Buzz Thompson. Meg Caldwell and Josh Eagle of Stanford's program also participated.
The workshop arose out of an interdisciplinary EPA STAR grant directed by Professor Salzman. Salzman began work on the project while a visiting faculty member at Stanford in 1998-99 and has continued to collaborate closely on ecosystem services with Gretchen Daily and Paul Ehrlich of Stanford's Biology Department and with ENRLP. The workshop was funded jointly by the Environmental Protection Agency, the Rocky Mountain Mineral Law Foundation, and ENRLP.
In May 2001, the Stanford Environmental Law Journal published a symposium issue dedicated to the theme of ecosystem services with seven articles written by various workshop participants.
This roundtable on Corporate Responsibility and Accountability was cosponsored by the California Global Corporate Accountability Project and ENRLP. The dialogue brought together officials and leaders from multinational corporations, international agencies, and nongovernmental organizations to formulate workable policy solutions to environmental, natural resource, and human rights problems multinationals face in their overseas operations.
International and domestic perspectives topics at this conference included: the conceptual bases of a human right to environment; the historical, moral, and legal foundations of a right to environment; and enforcement by international adjudicative bodies, particularly the United Nations Human Rights Committee and the American and European Courts of Human Rights.
The Vilcabamba Project conference was cohosted by the Environmental Law Society and Stanford's Institute for International Studies. The conference focused on the Vilcabamba Project, an ethnobotany project in Southern Ecuador known for its extraordinary plant diversity and active practice of traditional medicine, and the claimed advantages and potential disadvantages of genetic prospecting for new pharmaceuticals.
Stanford Law students engaged in a public demonstration of an alternate form of dispute resolution used by the Navajo Nation known as "peacemaking." This demonstration was organized by Navajo Nation Supreme Court Associate Justice Raymond D. Austin, then in residence at Stanford as the Herman Phleger Distinguished Visiting Professor of Law.
California's top legal experts in federal and state endangered species laws and land-use planning participated in this roundtable community outreach discussion and workshop.
Cohosted by Sustainable Conservation, a San Francisco-based nonprofit founded by Frank D. Boren '58, former president of the Nature Conservancy, this roundtable focused on the use of incentive systems to preserve biodiversity in California.
Stanford Law School offers not only traditional scholarships and loans to students with financial need, but also a variety of other financial aid programs, fellowships, and awards of particular interest to environmental students. Students who work in the public interest field after law school may compete for special job fellowships or take advantage of the Miles and Nancy Rubin Loan Forgiveness Program at Stanford Law School. Students planning to work for public interest organizations during the summer while attending law school may apply for grants and loans. Qualified students also may apply for Rocky Mountain Mineral Law Foundation Scholarships or for fellowships and research support from the Stanford Center on International Conflict and Negotiation. Finally, Stanford Law School offers writing awards with monetary prizes each year to students who write outstanding papers in a variety of areas, including environmental law and dispute resolution.
Stanford's Environmental and Natural Resources Law & Policy Program offers one of the most extensive environmental and natural resources curricula in the nation. The program integrates into each of its core courses situational case studies and simulations that are designed to bring real-world problem solving into the classroom. The small size of courses—usually 15 to 20 students, and seldom more than 50—fosters an interactive, skills-oriented approach to legal education, not to mention robust class discussions.
A key philosophy behind the program's curriculum is that multiple disciplines must learn to work together to solve environmental and natural resources issues. Thus, our courses examine not only the law, but also the scientific, technical, and social science dimensions of a problem. Graduate students from other disciplines at Stanford—business, environmental engineering, urban planning, earth systems, and biology—often enroll in the program's courses, adding new insights and perspectives.
Courses offered by the program over the past several years include:
Some, like Environmental Law and Policy, are offered every year, while others are taught on a more occasional basis.
The 11th Annual Conference on Litigating Takings and Other Legal Challenges to Land Use and Environmental Regulation