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STUDENTS > Curricular Programs > Environmental Law >
For environmental lawyers, it is not sufficient to master substantive environmental law and administrative procedure. They must also understand public policy analysis; the interaction of law, economics and science; the normative bases for environmental protection; and the political and bureaucratic dimensions of environmental law and policy. Environmental lawyers must be sensitive to the broad social, economic and political realities that underlie this area of the law.
Boalt Hall's Environmental Law Program provides students with the analytical skills, substantive knowledge and practical judgment needed to be effective lawyers in this evolving area. The curriculum is concerned not only with the basic legal elements—statutes, regulations and cases—but also with the broader structure of environmental law and policy. The program prepares students to navigate the existing regulatory system as well as to contribute to the ongoing process of reform.
Concurrent and Combined Degree Progams
Students may enroll in a concurrent degree program with another department or school on campus, such as the Haas School of Business; the Department of City and Regional Planning; the Goldman School of Public Policy; the Energy and Resources Group; or the Department of Environmental Science, Policy and Management.
Students may also enroll in a combined degree program with the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University or the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University. Students must apply separately to each program. A J.D. degree and a master's degree can be earned in approximately four years.
Boalt is unique among major American law schools in that it offers an interdisciplinary Ph.D. degree through the Jurisprudence and Social Policy (JSP) Program. Students with a strong interest in both environmental law and policy and a teaching career may consider applying to the JSP Program. In recent years, students have graduated with specializations in environmental history, natural resources law and law of the sea.
Internships
Internships during the academic year provide an opportunity to apply the knowledge and ideas learned in the classroom, gain practical experience in an environmental practice, and work with practicing environmental lawyers. The law school grants academic credit to students who participate in approved internships, most of which are with nonprofit environmental organizations and government agencies. A typical internship requires a commitment of two to three days each week for four to six units of credit.
Some of the more popular internships with nonprofit organizations include those with the:
- Earthjustice Legal Defense Fund
- Environmental Defense
- Natural Resources Defense Council
- The Nature Conservancy
Students also have held internships in organizations dealing with international environmental issues, such as the EPA's Office of General Counsel (International Activities Division).
Courses
The following courses are available for those interested in environmental law:
California Environmental Issues
Instructor will moderate six panel discussions by outside speakers on key California environmental law and policy issues. One of the sessions will focus on the law of global warming/climate control. Possible other topics may include environmental federalism (i.e., the respective California and federal roles in environmental regulation, the clash between environmental regulation and privateproperty rights, and coastal resource regulation and preservation in California. The guest speakers will include academics, practicing environmental attorneys, and non-legal experts (e.g., scientists and economists.) Class will meet for six sessions on alternate weeks during the semester.
Comparative Environmental Politics and Policy
This seminar explores environmental politics and policies through the lens of comparative and international politics. The first half of the seminar compares national responses to environmental issues and problems. Students examine political and legal institutions, modes of political participation, the structure of environmental policy, policy styles, and the dynamics of agenda setting in both developed and developing nations. The seminar's second half addresses the international and regional dimensions of environmental politics and policies, with particular focus on trade and the environment, environmental regulation and international competitiveness, regional environmental cooperation (EU, NAFTA, APEC), the formation and implementation of global environmental treaties, the role of international institutions, and the patterns of conflict and cooperation between developed and developing countries.
Environmental Compliance and Enforcement
This seminar focuses on the administrative, civil and criminal enforcement mechanisms available under environmental statutes. Students begin by reading widely in political science and the law to understand the effectiveness and secondary consequences of various enforcement and compliance strategies. Then, working in teams, students study actual enforcement problems, such as criminal enforcement against an owner of a hazardous waste site or administrative action against municipal polluters. Students prepare a seminar paper on their field research.
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Environmental Law and Policy
This introductory course is designed to explore fundamental legal and policy issues in environmental law. By focusing on environmental torts and a limited number of federal statutes—principally the Clean Air Act; the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act; the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation and Liability Act; the National Environmental Policy Act; and the Endangered Species Act—the course exposes students to the principal approaches to environmental law: litigation, command and control regulation, market incentives, and providing information.
Environmental Law Workshop
This seminar will feature a series of speakers doing cutting-edge work in environmental law. The speakers will be drawn from various disciplines on the Berkeley campus, as well as including leading legal scholars nationally. Students will be expected to read each paper in advance and write a short (1-2 pages) response memo before each session, as well as a 5 page response memo about one of the papers. Grades will be based on the response memos and on class participation.
Environmental Law Writing Seminar
In this seminar, students write a 20-page case note about an important case or other development in environmental law that occurred during the previous year. The pieces are then evaluated by the Ecology Law Quarterly for publication in the Annual Review of Environmental and Natural Resource Law, which is published in the spring semester. Thus, students not only work on their writing and research skills, but they also have the opportunity to publish an article in their second year.
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Environmental Litigation
This course provides students with a sophisticated understanding of public and private cost recovery litigation involving soil and groundwater contamination. The course covers critical issues in the field, delves into the necessary practicalities and covers the "great" cases so that students can speak the language of environmental litigation. The class surveys the latest developments in the application of traditional tort theory in the environmental context. Students become familiar with the evolving "fear of cancer" tort, as well as those portions of the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act that are important to cost recovery actions. This is followed by a segment on the interplay of administrative law and environmental litigation. The class also covers those facets of insurance law critical to litigating cost recovery actions, and includes an analysis of the potential liability of financial institutions, corporate officers, shareholders and parent corporations.
Environmental Law Practicum
In this course, students will work in teams of two to three with government agencies or non-profit organizations to prepare one or more research memoranda under the supervision of counsel for the particular agency or non-profit organization and under the direction of the Lecturer. The research will involve subjects of importance involving complex questions of law and policy. Students will meet one or more times with counsel for the agency or organization for which they are doing the research and may be asked to present the results of their work to a Board or Commission of that agency or organization. All of the students will meet at the beginning of the semester for two consecutive weeks to receive assignments and instruction in preparing memoranda for consumption by clients. Thereafter, each student team will meet with the Lecturer periodically for review of the work in preparation. At the end of the semester, all of the students will meet for two consecutive weeks to present the results of their work to the class and the Lecturer. Grades will be based on the research memoranda produced.
Environmental Remedies
This course provides students with a sophisticated understanding of the range of remedies available to plaintiffs in public and private cost recovery litigation. In contrast to the course Environmental Litigation, which surveys substantive legal theories of recovery, this class focuses on the available civil and administrative remedies in environmental litigation. Upon completion of this course, students will have an in-depth understanding of the standards for, uses of and practicalities involved in monetary damages, injunctive relief, civil penalties and administrative remedies. In addition, students study remedies in the environmental context from the defendant's point of view, paying attention to avenues of attack and ways to favorably affect the outcome of litigation.
International Environmental Law
This course addresses the law's role in the management of international environmental problems. It begins with a brief introduction to public international law as it relates to the environment and a discussion of what international environmental law means in contemporary society. The course includes consideration of international environmental treaties; the role of the International Court of Justice in identifying and establishing international environmental law; international regulation of private conduct affecting the environment; trade and the environment; the role of international financial institutions; human rights and the environment; and armed conflict and the environment. Students examine procedural topics, such as access to information, environmental impact assessment and public participation, as well as substantive topics, such as the regulation of human conduct and the protection of particular environmental resources.
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Land-Use Planning
This course explores the role of government in planning and controlling the use of land, with particular emphasis on local and regional efforts. Topics include comprehensive land-use plans, zoning, subdivision controls, historic preservation, aesthetic regulation, the regional obligations of municipalities and constitutional issues raised by land-use regulation.
Environmental Law and Development Workshop
The intersection of environmental and land use law, on one hand, and the real world of real estate development, on the other, is filled with complexities and trade offs. The answers to many legal questions raised by some development projects are not easily discerned from the law. Furthermore, large-scale development projects almost always have measurable negative impacts on the environment, while at the same time often improving the lives of some people. As a result, the social and economic utility of projects is often difficult to determine. Lawyers inevitably find themselves in the middle of these conflicts. This year’s Workshop will focus on an important publicly sponsored or private project. The class will look at the project from every angle. Each week the class will be visited by a person involved in or knowledgeable about some facet of the project. The students will interview the guest. In a separate forty-minute session each week, the class will discuss the information gleaned from the interviews and from outside research. The final project will consist of the preparation of a single “White Paper” on the project, which will be made available to the media and to policymakers.
Lawyering for Environmental Justice
This seminar introduces the topic of environmental justice and focuses on a few specific problems. The course begins with an overview of the disproportionate burdens of environmental hazards borne by poor people, particularly people of color. The seminar then considers the legal and political tools available to represent affected individuals and communities, and the strategic issues confronting groups organizing for and advocating change. Throughout, the course critically examines the role of lawyers and methods of lawyering in the environmental justice context.
Local Government Law
This course explores the structure and powers of local government, limitations on authority, relationships to other levels of government, and the emerging structure of governance at the regional level. Topics stressed are the constitutional relationship between state and local governments, the scope of police power, land-use planning and regulation, and municipal taxing authority.
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Ocean and Coastal Law and Policy
This seminar integrates the study of both the international law of the sea and specific U.S. legal regimes governing the oceans and coastal zones. The course examines ocean law from a historical perspective and also provides a survey and analysis of ocean-resource issues both in contemporary international relations and in U.S. constitutional law and public policy. Specific topics to be considered include the modern global movement for extension of the territorial seas and economic zones; U.S. coastal resources conflicts and their management; offshore mineral exploitation; federal-state relations since World War II; and the evolution of national agencies and international agreements that govern the management of marine fishery resources.
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Takings Clause Seminar
This seminar deals with the takings clause of the U.S. Constitution, which provides that "private property [shall not] be taken for public use, without payment of just compensation." It considers the standards for a compensable "taking," focusing on land-use regulation, environmental laws or other types of regulation that are frequently challenged as takings. The course also addresses various commentators' theories as to how a court should decide that a compensable taking has occurred.
Water Law
The course covers Western water law, with special attention to California. In addition to the standard doctrines, the course deals with public rights in water, the special rights of Native Americans, transferability of water rights, state and federal programs to resolve water rights claims, and the water needs of public lands, such as instream flow maintenance.
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