LLM Courses

Provides students with a working knowledge of the general principles of administrative law;  implementation of legislative policy through administrative agencies, including the role of administrative agencies in the governmental process, rulemaking, adjudication, and judicial review of agency actions

This seminar provides students an opportunity to produce a significant written paper based on sophisticated research and thinking about a key area in energy policy and law. Seminar topics include proposals for reducing the economic and environmental costs of meeting energy needs. Efforts to reduce costs through more efficient delivery and end-use are assessed, with specific attention to the statutory, regulatory, and contractual techniques for creating sound incentives.

Provides in-depth exposure to the most useful, efficient strategies and resources for environmental law research, including highly specialized information databases, advanced administrative law research, legislative history, and environmental news/updating services.

Provides in-depth exposure to the most useful, efficient strategies and resources for environmental law research, including highly specialized information databases, advanced administrative law research, legislative history, and environmental news/updating services.

Land use development and management practices can have significant impacts on the conservation of biodiversity, yet land use is not systematically regulated to address those impacts.  Instead, a mosaic of intersecting legal institutions regulate private land use through federal laws (e.g. the Endangered Species Act, wetlands regulation under the Clean Water Act) state laws (e.g., growth management systems, environmental impact assessment requirements) local regulation (e.g. general plans, subdivision regulations, zoning ordinances) and private actions (e.g. conservation easements).  This writing seminar examines the intersection of advanced forms of land use regulation in the context of an in-depth student investigation of a significant biodiversity conservation challenge.  Reading focuses on (1) the relationship between local, state, and federal regulation, and (2) the relationship between public regulation and private means of conserving biodiversity.  Each student will select a case study of a conservation effort involving land use that involves multiple regulatory actors and multiple laws.  Students will review regulatory and easement documents, interview regulators, community participants and developers, produce a written case-study, and prepare present the case to the class.

This course presents the theory and practice of arbitration, negotiation, mediation and other processes placed under the umbrella of alternative dispute resolution. This survey course focuses on the theory and practice of dispute resolution as either an alternative or an addition to formal litigation. Students will study the legal, sociological, and ethical issues in dispute resolution and apply them in simulation exercises designed to explore the three major types of alternative dispute resolution.

This course addresses the fundamental crisis in which growing energy demands are threatening the buffering capacity of our global atmosphere, while also producing the greatest emissions of most primary pollutants, and the struggle to identify and create the legal elements necessary to promote and ensure solutions.

Examines the nature of the arbitration process, rules governing hearings, the relationship between arbitration and the court system, the enforceability of agreements to arbitrate,  and judicial review of arbitration award.  This course also explores the controversial areas of arbitration such as requiring arbitration in employment and consumer contracts. 

Explores the interface of environmental laws and federal bankruptcy statutes, as well as the tension between the goals of bankruptcy and the goals of environmental law, in particular CERCLA. Topics covered include the rights and obligations of debtors and creditors under the Bankruptcy Code, the discharge of environmental debts in bankruptcy, and the abandonment of contaminated property by the bankruptcy trustee.

An examination of what biodiversity is, the growing threats to it, and U.S. and international laws to combat those threats. The course focuses on current controversies to highlight legal, scientific, and political strategies for protecting biodiversity. Particular emphasis is placed on the U.S. Endangered Species Act.

Examines CERCLA's broad liability and cost recovery provisions, emergency response and cleanup requirements that extend beyond the usual Superfund sites.  Brownfields, natural resources damages, community involvement, recent Supreme Court decisions and statutory amendments will also be addressed.  The course will examine how parties escape or limit  liability through due diligence, defenses,  pollution prevention, settlement, and cost allocation.

This course reviews the various statutory and common law claims being tried in climate litigation, the kinds of remedies sought, and the jurisdictional and evidentiary obstacles that must be overcome.

The Arctic generally is considered the least studied and most poorly understood area on Earth. At the same time, global warming has reduced ice cover and thus increased pressure to allow industrial activities such as oil and gas development in Arctic waters. This course explores the pressures to develop America’s Arctic, the legal structures pursuant to which development decisions are and should be made, how the Deepwater Horizon disaster has influenced those decisions, and what development of the Arctic means for local residents, the United States, and the world. Throughout the course, the role in shaping the law of science, and impacts to Arctic indigenous peoples and the environment will be addressed.

An overview of the environmental challenges for China's 1.3 billion people and the efforts to address them through law and regulation. Includes an introduction to the political and legal system and cultural background of the world's largest greenhouse gas emitter, and surveys the basic regulatory schemes managing air quality, water resources and quality, natural resources, environmental impact assessments, and pending legislation concerning waste management and energy conservation. 

Explores the principles of ecology using an interdisciplinary approach and field-based work. Course work stresses the inventorying of biotic and physical components of a landscape, examining how these components are distributed, and determining what forces drive these patterns. Topics include interpreting the natural and cultural histories of a landscape, biodiversity conservation, and the scientific method, among others. 

A critical examination of several case studies drawn broadly from the science, law, politics, economics and policy of food and agriculture.  The course also has the broader goals of teaching the student to critically read the scientific literature, and to effectively apply science in diverse legal and political settings. 

Examines key issues in American energy policy and searches for ways to ease the strains which that policy puts upon environmental sustainability. The course reviews fundamental facts about our energy demands and sample regulatory orders and legal writings that address many of those elements from the perspective of a legal review. Background readings will include ethical issues of social justice in siting projects and meeting-or limiting-energy demand, the statutory schemes underlying traditional regulation, and an introduction to wholesale electric markets.

Builds on the course Energy Law and Policy in a Carbon-Constrained World by exposing students to the legal, economic, and structural issues involved in energy regulation and energy markets, focusing on electricity. The course examines the evolution, theory and techniques of monopoly regulation; the current processes for rate setting; and the development of  competitive, market-based alternatives. The course exposes students to the latest approaches to managing the electric grid, to renewable energy strategies and procurement, energy efficiency, demand side management and green markets.

Explores the range of processes that are used to resolve environmental disputes with particular emphasis on consensual processes such as negotiation and mediation.  Instruction will be based on lectures and discussions of the theory of dispute resolution and environmental law and simulations to practice the skills needed to resolve environmental disputes.

Explores the range of processes that are used to resolve environmental disputes with particular emphasis on consensual processes such as negotiation and mediation.  Instruction will be based on lectures and discussions of the theory of dispute resolution and environmental law and simulations to practice the skills needed to resolve environmental disputes.