Law and Environment and Resources

Overview

JD/MS, JD/PhD

Stanford joint degree programs really do help law students begin to "think like a client." The interdisciplinary background I'm building will help me be a better lawyer and a more effective advocate. — Brian Shillinglaw, JD/MS, Interdisciplinary Program in Environment and Resources (IPER) '08

Addressing the ecological and resource challenges of our rapidly changing world requires more than a passion for the environment. It takes a mastery of analytical tools, strong problem-solving skills, and a commitment to thinking and working across disciplines as diverse as law, biology, history, economics, psychology, and engineering.

Stanford's Interdisciplinary Graduate Program in Environment and Resources (IPER) allows students to combine expertise in the natural and social sciences, engineering, law, and business to address pressing environmental and natural resource problems. Formally part of the School of Earth Sciences, IPER offers a rigorous joint degree program that pushes students to understand and use natural and social science approaches, skills, and concepts to re-imagine and address legal and policy questions with a fresh mind-set and novel analytical tools. By giving students the opportunity to delve into both the qualitative and quantitative aspects of environmental issues, course work prepares them to analyze environmental and resource problems from multiple perspectives and use diverse analytical approaches from multiple disciplines. For example, a student interested in exploring the potential for open-ocean fin-fish aquaculture can use classic economic analysis as well as business market studies, coupled with biological risk assessment and legal gap analysis, to understand and evaluate both the potential for and important environmental issues raised by such a venture.

IPER students who earn a JD/MS are poised to move into a multitude of potential professional opportunities that merge law with environmental concerns, including academia, policy development, private industry, NGOs, government, or in-house lawyering. There will also be a JD/PhD option for students who want to be prepared for careers in academia or government, or with an NGO.

Resources

In addition to IPER, Stanford offers many resources, opportunities, and experiences to support an education that blends legal skills and perspectives with a deep understanding of environmental issues, including:

  • Environmental and Natural Resources Law and Policy Program
    Provides critical interdisciplinary course offerings for joint degree students, including core courses, such as Environmental Science for Managers and Policy Makers and an Environmental Workshop, as well as specialized courses, such as Law, Science, and Policy of the California Coast. Also provides faculty mentors and an institutional bridge between joint degree students and peer departments, schools, and faculty across campus.
  • Woods Institute for the Environment
    Sponsors several weekly interdisciplinary seminars, including the Environmental Policy Forum, the Energy Seminar, the Water Seminar, and the Sustainable Built Environment Seminar, that expose students to research and disciplinary approaches from a wide variety of disciplines and provide an informal, collegial environment for students and faculty to discuss cutting-edge research.
  • Initiative on the Environment and Sustainability
    Takes action on Stanford's commitment to interdisciplinary research and problem-solving to address the world's most pressing environmental issues.

Course Requirements

All students must take at least two IPER courses

  1. IPER 310: Environmental Forum Seminar
  2. IPER 335/Law 604/OIT/335: Environmental Science for Managers and Policy Makers

along with the Environmental Law Workshop. Designed specifically for joint MS students, Environmental Science for Managers and Policy–Makers covers the fundamentals of earth systems and environmental science and develops skills in spreadsheet modeling, optimization, and Monte Carlo simulation that are essential for environmental policy analysis and resource management. The course is taught by a diverse team of stellar faculty from the schools of Humanities and Sciences, Earth Sciences, Engineering, Law and Business. It prepares future managers, entrepreneurs, and policy makers to apply scientific understanding to business operations, strategy, and the design of effective market–based environmental policy.

Joint degree students must also take at least eight additional courses within one or two of IPER's four focal areas:

  • Culture and Institutions
  • Economics and Policy Analysis
  • Engineering and Technology
  • Natural Sciences

A full listing of courses in these categories is online.

Students pursuing the JD/MS program may apply up to 30 semester (45 quarter) units toward both degrees, potentially allowing the joint degree to be completed in three academic years. No more than 24 semester (36 quarter) hours of courses that originate outside the law school may count toward the law degree. For additional information regarding requirements and application procedure, please visit iper.stanford.edu