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Summer Session

Faculty

Don Baur

Partner, Perkins Coie

Mr. Baur’s practice focuses on public lands, energy resources, marine resources, fish and wildlife, wetlands, endangered species, NEPA, and Indian law. He represents clients on offshore renewable and oil and gas energy, coastal and marine and spatial planning, and marine fisheries and wildlife conservation. He has published numerous articles and served as adjunct professor of wildlife law at Golden Gate Law School and instructor for the Environmental Law Institute and American Bar Association. He is coeditor of the American Bar Association’s treatises on the Endangered Species Act and Ocean and Coastal Law. Prior to joining Perkins Coie, he was general counsel to the U.S. Marine Mammal Commission and attorney-advisor in the Solicitor’s Office of the Department of the Interior. He served as an advisor to the Obama Transition Team on ocean issues. Mr. Baur received his BA degree, with highest honors, from Trinity College and his JD degree from the University of Pennsylvania.

Laurie Beyranevand ’03

Assistant Professor of Law, Vermont Law School

Before joining the faculty at Vermont Law School, Professor Beyranevand was a staff attorney with the Disability Law Project of Vermont Legal Aid, Inc. She has served as a judicial law clerk to the Honorable Marie E. Lihotz, PJFP, in New Jersey and in the Office of the Vermont Attorney General, Environmental Unit. She teaches dispute resolution and environmental writing courses at VLS. She earned her BA degree from Rutgers College and her JD degree from Vermont Law School.

Seth Blumsack

Assistant Professor, Department of Energy and Mineral Engineering, The Pennsylvania State University

Dr. Blumsack is also an adjunct research professor with the Carnegie Mellon Electricity Industry Center. Prior to returning to academia, he worked for Economic Insight, Inc., in Portland, Oregon, where he served as a consultant and contributing editor for the Energy Market Report, a daily newsletter covering wholesale electricity and natural gas markets in North America. He was also the editor of Pacific West Oil Data, a monthly compendium of information on the west coast crude-oil and petroleum product industries. He earned his BA degree from Reed College and his MS and PhD degrees from Carnegie Mellon University.

Karen Borgstrom ’93

Director, New Hampshire Judicial Branch’s Office of Mediation and Arbitration

Before joining the court system in 2007, Ms. Borgstrom practiced law and had a private mediation practice for more than 13 years, focusing primarily on parenting and divorce cases, probate, employment, and civil matters. She also worked as a mediator in the New Hampshire Judicial Branch’s superior court rule 170 civil mediation program, in family division and probate court. She mediated for the Vermont superior courts and conducted numerous private mediations for Vermont divorcing couples or for those with parenting issues. Ms. Borgstrom received her BS degree from Middlebury College and her JD degree from Vermont Law School.

Peter Bradford

Former Member, U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission. Former Chair, New York and Maine Utility Regulatory Commissions

Mr. Bradford is currently an adjunct professor at Vermont Law School and has taught at the Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Studies. He recently was chair of Vermont’s Public Oversight Panel for the audit of the Vermont Yankee nuclear power plant and has served on several other state, federal, and international advisory panels pertaining to nuclear power, including a panel advising how best to replace the remaining Chernobyl nuclear plants in Ukraine. He is a member of the Policy Advisory Council of the China Sustainable Energy Project. Mr. Bradford is vice-chair of the board of the Union of Concerned Scientists. He received his BA degree and his JD degree from Yale University.

Brian Dunkiel ’96

Cofounder, Dunkiel Saunders Elliott Raubvogel & Hand, PLLC

Mr. Dunkiel is a legal advisor to some of Vermont’s leading businesses and nonprofit organizations. He works with clients to resolve complex problems and disputes, providing regulatory, land-use, environmental, and corporate-governance counsel. His clients operate in a wide range of areas, from real estate and renewable energy, to agriculture and food products, green consumer goods, and publishing. He has extensive experience in permitting and regulatory proceedings before local, state, and federal decision-makers; negotiating with government regulators and third parties; and litigation. He co-founded his firm in 2001 after serving as general counsel to Friends of the Earth, a national environmental organization based in Washington, DC. Mr. Dunkiel received his BS degree from Cornell University and his JD and MSEL degrees from Vermont Law School.

Tim Eichenberg

Chief Counsel, San Francisco Bay Conservation and Development Commission

Mr. Eichenberg has served as legal counsel for the Ocean Conservancy, Oceana, the Marine Law Institute, the California Coastal Commission, and the Environmental Defense Center. He cochaired the Clean Water Network in Washington, D.C., and cofounded the Casco Baykeeper Program in Maine. He has authored more than 30 environmental articles and reports, and edited Ocean and Coastal Law, published by the American Bar Association in 2008. He earned his BA degree from Earlham College, his JD degree from Washington University School of Law, and a post-doctoral fellowship in Marine Policy from the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution.

William Eubanks II ’08

Associate Attorney, Meyer Glitzenstein & Crystal

Mr. Eubanks litigates precedent-setting impact cases in federal appellate and trial courts, specializing in environmental and natural resource conservation, endangered species and wildlife protection, federal lands preservation, and open government laws. His notable cases include successfully challenging oil spill response strategies in the Gulf of Mexico after Deepwater Horizon as harmful to marine wildlife, prevailing in the nation’s first federal lawsuit challenging an industrial wind energy project on environmental grounds, and coauthoring briefs in three recent U.S. Supreme Court cases involving climate change, genetically modified crops, and naval sonar use. He has published numerous pieces on diverse environmental legal topics, including several law review articles and textbook chapters that focus on the ecological and public health impacts of industrial agriculture, and he is also an adjunct professor at American University's Washington College of Law. Mr. Eubanks received his BA degree from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, his JD degree from North Carolina Central University School of Law, and his LLM degree from Vermont Law School.

Kevin Foy

Assistant Professor, North Carolina Central University School of Law

Professor Foy teaches courses in environmental law, business associations, and torts. Prior to joining the faculty at NCCU, he practiced law, and before that he served as editor of Forest & Conservation History, a refereed multi-disciplinary academic journal that focused on the history of human interaction with the environment (Duke University Press). From 2001 to 2009, he served as Mayor of Chapel Hill, North Carolina. During his time in office, he focused on building a sustainable, environmentally sound community, leading the U.S. Conference of Mayors to name Chapel Hill America’s Most Livable City. Land use is the focus of his research and writing, including his recent publication, Complexities of Urban Sustainability: Using Local Land Use Authority to Achieve Environmental Goals, 3 Charlotte Law Review 23 (Spring 2011). Professor Foy earned his BA degree from Kenyon College and his JD degree from NCCU.

Philip J. Harter

Earl F. Nelson Professor Emeritus of the University of Missouri

Professor Harter is a scholar in residence at Vermont Law School and the Earl F. Nelson Professor of Law Emeritus at the University of Missouri. He has been involved in the design of many of the major developments of administrative law in the past 40 years. Professor Harter has been a pioneer in both the theory and practice of the use of consensus and other forms of dispute resolution involving government agencies. He was a principal draftsman of the Negotiated Rulemaking Act and of the Administrative Dispute Resolution Act. As a long-time private practitioner in Washington, he has been the mediator for many complex, multiparty negotiations involving public policy. He served as the chair of the ABA’s Section of Administrative Law, as co-chair of the ABA’s Task Force on Regulatory Reform, and as the representative of the AdLaw Section to the drafting of the Uniform Mediation Act. He is a public member of the Administrative Conference of the United States.

Barry E. Hill

Senior Counsel for Environmental Governance, Office of International and Tribal Affairs, U.S. EPA

Previously, Mr. Hill was the director of the Office of Environmental Justice at EPA. He has also served as the associate solicitor of the Division of Conservation and Wildlife and director of the Office of Hearings and Appeals of the Department of the Interior. Prior to that, he was counsel to the international law firm of Dickstein, Shapiro & Morin, project manager in the Superfund Business Unit of ICF Inc., special counsel to the attorney general of the District of Columbia, legal counsel to the inspector general of the U.S. EPA, law secretary to the deputy administrative judge of New York City (Criminal Division), and an assistant district attorney in Brooklyn. He has taught at Antioch School of Law and American University’s Washington College of Law. He is the author of the Environmental Justice: Legal Theory and Practice, and he has published several articles. Mr. Hill received his BA degree in political science from Brooklyn College, MA degree in political science from Howard University, and JD degree from Cornell Law School.

Randolph L. Hill

Deputy Director, Office of Wastewater Management, U.S. EPA

Mr. Hill has served in his current position at EPA since 2009, where he helps to oversee the management of EPA’s clean water permitting and wastewater infrastructure assistance programs. Prior to that, he spent 6 years managing EPA’s civil enforcement of the major environmental statutes, and over 15 years in EPA’s Office of General Counsel and served as the agency’s national legal expert for many Clean Water Act issues. He has taught environmental law as a visiting professor at Tulane University, and public administration at the University of Maryland, University College, where he was a finalist for the Excellence in Teaching Award in 1998. Mr. Hill earned his JD and Master of Public Policy degrees from the University of California, Berkeley, where he was elected to the Order of the Coif.

Hillary Hoffmann

Professor of Law, Vermont Law School

Before joining the faculty at Vermont Law School, Professor Hoffmann practiced real property and natural resources law at Fabian & Clendenin, PC, in Salt Lake City, Utah, where she represented several environmental non-profit organizations before the Bureau of Land Management Office of Hearings and Appeals and in federal court. She also represented mining companies, condominium associations and commercial landlords in various real property actions in state court. In 2005-2006, she represented Navajo children seeking insurance settlements in various wrongful death actions in federal and state court. She clerked for Chief Judge Dee V. Benson in the U.S. District Court for the District of Utah, Judges Merideth Wright and Thomas Durkin in the Vermont Environmental Court, and Judge Matthew Katz in Chittenden Superior Court. Professor Hoffmann received her BA degree from Middlebury College and her JD degree from S. J. Quinney College of Law at the University of Utah.

Jessica Jay ’97

Founding Partner, Conservation Law, P.C.

Ms. Jay’s firm is devoted to ensuring the permanence of land conservation through sound land conservation transactions and the defense and enforcement of perpetual conservation easements. She represents and partners with land trusts, government entities, and landowners to conserve working landscapes and environmentally significant properties in the Rocky Mountain West. She actively engages conservation professionals, land trusts, and landowners in conservation workshops and discussions, and she teaches Land Conservation Law at University of Denver’s Sturm College of Law. She collaborates with the land trust community to develop and implement legal defense and enforcement mechanisms for easement holders, to design and protect conservation easement incentives, and to create enforceable perpetual conservation easements that anticipate changing conditions, climate, and public interests. Ms. Jay received her BA degree from Bowdoin College and her JD and MSEL degrees from Vermont Law School.

Kevin Jones, PhD

Associate Director, Senior Fellow for Energy Technology and Policy, Institute for Energy and the Environment, Vermont Law School

Dr. Jones has been at the center of the transformation of the electric power industry in the Northeast as the director of Power Market Policy for the Long Island Power Authority (LIPA) and as the former director of Energy Policy for the City of New York. LIPA is one of the largest municipal utilities in the country and is a leader in energy conservation and alternative energy technologies. While at LIPA, he collaborated on energy policy with both the Large Public Power Council and the New York Transmission Owners. He has also consulted on energy issues as an associate director with Navigant Consulting and Resource Management International. Dr. Jones received his BS degree from the University of Vermont, his Master’s degree from the LBJ School of Public Affairs at the University of Texas at Austin, and his PhD from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute’s Lally School of Management and Technology.

Tom Lautzenheiser

Central/Western Regional Scientist, Massachusetts Audubon Society

Mr. Lautzenheiser is an expert field naturalist concentrating on plants, reptiles, amphibians, butterflies, and landscape interpretation. He is also a skilled community ecologist with particular interest in wetlands and rich northern hardwood forests. Mr. Lautzenheiser is responsible for guiding ecological management planning for Massachusetts Audubon’s 33,000-acre sanctuary network, and works with his land protection, science, and property management colleagues to ensure that Massachusetts Audubon’s activities consistently achieve their conservation goals. He received his BS degrees in biology and environmental studies from Tufts University and his MS degree in natural resource planning/ecological planning from the University of Vermont.

L. Randolph Lowry

President and Professor of Management, Lipscomb University, Nashville

Formerly professor of law and director of the Straus Institute for Dispute Resolution at Pepperdine University School of Law, Professor Lowry is a lawyer, mediator, and teacher-professor. He is also the author of several books including West’s Negotiation and Settlement Advocacy. In addition to his work in law schools, he has trained more than 30,000 lawyers and managers in negotiation skills for organizations such as Nike, Pacific Gas and Electric, and State Farm Insurance and for bar associations across the country. Professor Lowry received his BA and MPA degrees from Pepperdine University and his JD degree from Hamline University School of Law.

Catherine MacKenzie

University Lecturer in Environmental Law, University of Cambridge

Dr. MacKenzie is also chairman of the Board of Scrutiny of Cambridge, a visiting research fellow at the University of Oxford, and an academic fellow of Inner Temple (one of the English Inns of Court). She coordinates International Environmental Law on the Cambridge LLM and her jointly edited book, Law, Tropical Forests and Carbon will be published by Cambridge University Press in April 2013. A member of the Bar of England and Wales and the High Court of Australia, she was previously employed by Allen & Overy, the World Bank, and the Asian Development Bank. She has served with the United Nations Mission in Liberia, has held fellowships at the University of Tokyo and in Kazakhstan, and now advises on women’s legal education in Saudi Arabia. Dr. MacKenzie has earned degrees from Oxford, the Inns of Court School of Law, the University of Sydney, and the Australian National University.

Thomas J. P. McHenry

Partner, Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher

Mr. McHenry is a member of his firm’s Environmental Practice Group. He practices general environmental law with an emphasis on air quality, climate change, hazardous waste, environmental diligence, land use, and energy issues. He represents clients in negotiations with state and federal environmental agencies including air quality management districts, regional water quality control boards, the Department of Toxic Substances Control and the California and U.S. Environmental Protection Agencies. He currently serves as co-chair of the DTSC External Advisory Group. He served as a law clerk to the Honorable Lawrence K. Karlton, Chief United States District Judge of the Eastern District of California, in Sacramento. He received his BA and Master of Forest Science degrees from Yale University and his JD from New York University Law School.

Marcos Orellana

Senior Attorney and Director, Human Rights and the Environment Program, Center for International Environmental Law

Prior to joining CIEL, Dr. Orellana was a fellow to the Lauterpacht Research Centre for International Law of the University of Cambridge and a visiting scholar with the Environmental Law Institute in Washington, D.C. Previously, he was instructor professor of international law at the Universidad de Talca, Chile, and a consultant to various international governmental and non-governmental organizations. He has provided legal counsel to the Chilean Ministry of Foreign Affairs on international environmental issues, including as legal counsel in the Rio+20 UN Conference on Sustainable Development. He received his LLM and SJD degrees from American University Washington College of Law.

Craig Pease

Professor of Science and Law, Vermont Law School

Professor Pease holds expertise in demographic and population models, particularly of plants, songbirds, and bears. He is a leading expert on the Yellowstone grizzlies, and filed a petition asking that they be listed as endangered under the Endangered Species Act. He challenged the federal government’s handling of Yellowstone grizzly bear research and has repeatedly asked the U.S. government to release its voluminous, and mostly secret, scientific data on Yellowstone grizzly bears. Before joining the VLS faculty, he was a faculty member at the University of Texas at Austin from 1986 to 1998. Professor Pease received his BA and MS degrees from the University of California, Los Angeles, and his PhD degree in evolutionary biology from the University of Chicago. He did a post doctorate in applied mathematics at the Weizmann Institute of Science.

Robert V. Percival

Robert F. Stanton Professor of Law, Director of the Environmental Law Program, University of Maryland Francis King Carey School of Law

Professor Percival served as a law clerk for Judge Shirley M. Hufstedler of the Ninth Circuit and for Supreme Court Justice Byron R. White, and spent six years as an attorney for the Environmental Defense Fund. He has served as a visiting professor at Harvard Law School and Georgetown University Law Center. He is the principal author of the most widely used environmental law casebook. He was a J. William Fulbright Scholar at the China University of Political Science and Law in Beijing in 2008 and has worked with the China Council on International Cooperation for Environment and Development, the National People’s Congress, and the Chinese Ministry of Environmental Protection. He has lectured at more than 20 Chinese universities and in 2009 he represented the U.S. State Department on a lecture tour of China. Professor Percival earned his BA degree from Macalester College and his MA and JD degrees from Stanford University.

Walter Poleman

Senior Lecturer, Rubenstein School of Environment and Natural Resources, University of Vermont

Professor Poleman teaches courses in integrated field science, landscape ecology, and measurements and mapping of natural resources. He also serves as the director of the Place-based Landscape Analysis and Community Engagement (PLACE) Program, a partnership of University of Vermont and Shelburne Farms, which provides local residents with a forum for exploring and understanding the natural and cultural history of their town landscape. He received his BS degree in biology from Cornell University, and his MS and PhD degrees from the University of Vermont.

Caleb Rick ‘88

Cofounder and Managing Director, North Common Associates

Mr. Rick has counseled hundreds of charity leaders and is a highly regarded speaker on legacy giving, endowments, resource development, and non-profit management. Prior to forming his firm, he served as the national director of planned giving and charitable gift counsel for the Sierra Club. Previously, he directed the planned giving programs for the University of California - San Francisco and UC Medical Center; and the annual giving programs for Dartmouth Medical School and Dartmouth Hitchcock Medical Center. Before he began his career in the non-profit sector, he served on the staff of the New York State Lieutenant Governor and the New York Attorney General. Mr. Rick earned his AB degree from Middlebury College, his JD degree from Vermont Law School, and a certificate from the Coro Foundation’s City Focus Program.

Christine Ryan

Environmental Law Librarian, Vermont Law School

Ms. Ryan is an experienced legal research instructor at Vermont Law School where she teaches legal research courses as well as environmental law research classes and workshops. She has created and continues to expand the VLS Environmental Law Research Guide, which links to carefully selected Internet resources that support the practice of environmental law. She develops the environmental law collection of electronic resources and books for VLS, and provides information services to the VLS community. She serves as research consultant to the Vermont Journal of Environmental Law. Prior to joining the staff at Vermont Law School, she was a reference librarian at Dartmouth College and at Yale University, where she also taught research classes. Ms. Ryan received her BA degree from the University of Connecticut, her MA degree from Dartmouth College, and her MS degree in library science from Simmons College.

Timothy Searchinger

Associate Research Scholar and Lecturer in Public and International Affairs, Woodrow Wilson School, Princeton University

Mr. Searchinger is a Transatlantic Fellow of the German Marshall Fund of the United States. Trained as a lawyer, he now works primarily on interdisciplinary environmental issues related to agriculture. For 17 years, he worked at the Environmental Defense Fund, where he co-founded the Center for Conservation Incentives, and supervised work on agricultural incentive and wetland protection programs. He has also been a deputy general counsel to Governor Robert P. Casey of Pennsylvania and a law clerk to Judge Edward R. Becker of the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit. His most recent writings focus on greenhouse gas emissions from biofuels, and agricultural conservation strategies to clean-up nutrient runoff. He received his BA degree from Amherst College and his JD degree from Yale Law School.

Linda Sheehan

Executive Director, Earth Law Center

Ms. Sheehan works to develop and implement new legal models that acknowledge the natural world’s inherent rights to exist, thrive, and evolve. Prior to Earth Law Center, she was executive director of the California Coastkeeper Alliance and Pacific Region director for the Ocean Conservancy. She has successfully advanced legislation, policy, and litigation initiatives to improve waterway health, provide monitoring data to the public, designate marine parks, and create new environmental funding. Ms. Sheehan earned her BS degree from MIT, and her MPP and JD degrees from the University of California, Berkeley.

Roma Sidortsov ’11

Senior Global Energy Fellow, Vermont Law School

Mr. Sidortsov is pursuing a PhD degree at the Scott Polar Research Institute at the University of Cambridge in the United Kingdom. He has taught at Irkutsk State Academy of Law and Economics, at Marlboro College Graduate School’s Managing for Sustainability program, and at Vermont Law School. Mr. Sidortsov practiced law in Russia as an in-house counsel for an American nonprofit organization and in the U.S. as a transactional attorney. He focuses his research on legal and policy issues surrounding transition to a low-fossil fuel economy and Arctic offshore oil and gas development with a special emphasis on the Russian Federation. He received his BA and MA degrees in law from Irkutsk State University in the Russian Federation and his JD and LLM degrees from Vermont Law School.

Benjamin K. Sovacool

Visiting Associate Professor, Energy Security and Justice Program, Vermont Law School

Professor Sovacool served most recently as an assistant professor and researcher at the Le Kuan Yew School of Public Policy at the National University of Singapore. He has consulted for the Asian Development Bank, United Nations Development Program, and United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific. He is the author or editor of eight books and more than 130 peer reviewed academic articles on various aspects of energy and climate change. His research interests include the barriers to alternative sources of energy supply, the politics of large-scale energy infrastructure, designing public policy to improve energy security and access to electricity, and building adaptive capacity and resilience to climate change in least developed Asian countries.

Michael Sutton

Executive Director, Audubon California and Vice President, Pacific Flyway for the National Audubon Society

Mr. Sutton was appointed as a member of the California Fish and Game Commission in 2007 and 2009. He recently edited a book, Ocean and Coastal Law and Policy, published by the American Bar Association. Previously, Sutton served for eight years as vice president of the Monterey Bay Aquarium where he founded the Center for the Future of the Oceans, the Aquarium’s conservation advocacy arm. Before that, Sutton helped establish ocean conservation programs at the David and Lucile Packard Foundation and the World Wildlife Fund, where he founded the Marine Stewardship Council. Sutton has served as a special agent with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and as a park ranger with the National Park Service. He received his BS degree in wildlife biology from Utah State University and his JD degree from George Washington University.

Philip Tabas

General Counsel, The Nature Conservancy

As the chief legal officer, Mr. Tabas oversees the work of the Conservancy’s worldwide legal department, which provides a full range of legal services in support of the Conservancy’s global conservation mission. He has been with the Conservancy for 31 years and has held a range of positions in the organization in the areas of legal services, land protection, government relations, compatible economic development, and conservation planning. He has been directly involved in numerous private land conservation and compatible development projects. He has also worked to secure changes in Federal, state, and international tax legislation and policy to encourage conservation activities. Mr. Tabas received his BA degree from Pennsylvania State University, his JD from the George Washington University, a Master of Land Use Planning from the University of Pennsylvania, and his LLM in tax law from Boston University Law School.

Jack Tuholske

Private Practitioner, Missoula, Montana, and Adjunct Professor, University of Montana Law School and Vermont Law School

Professor Tuholske has been in private practice in Missoula, Montana, since 1985, with an emphasis on public interest environmental litigation in state and federal court in Montana and the West. He has been lead counsel for over 45 published decisions, including over a dozen successful cases at the Montana Supreme Court in the fields of water law, land use, constitutional law and natural resource management. In recognition of his public interest work he was awarded the William O. Douglas Award by the Sierra Club in 2002 and the Kerry Rydberg Award in 2010 by the University of Oregon Public Interest Environmental Law Conference. In 2009 he taught at the Law Faculty of University of Ljubljana in Slovenia as a Fulbright Scholar. Current projects include developing the Water and Justice Program at Vermont Law School and litigating against coal development in the Powder River Basin. Mr. Tuholske earned his JD degree from the University of Montana.

Pamela Vesilind ’08

Adjunct Professor and Scholar in Residence, University of Arkansas School of Law

Professor Vesilind is an expert in animal law and food law; her focus has been on animals in agriculture, conflicts between animal rights and the First and Fourth Amendments, the public trust doctrine, and food labeling law. She joined the VLS faculty in 2009 as the assistant director of the Academic Success Program, where she taught Legal Methods and developed a program to accelerate first-year mastery of basic legal analysis, writing, and study skills. Professor Vesilind earned her BA degree from Guilford College and her JD degree from Vermont Law School. She is a candidate for an LLM in Food and Agriculture Law from the University of Arkansas School of Law.

Steven Weissman

Lecturer in Residence, University of California Berkeley School of Law, and Director of the Energy Program at the Center for Law, Energy and the Environment

Mr. Weissman is an energy and environmental attorney, and former administrative law judge at the California Public Utilities Commission (PUC). In addition, he previously served as principal consultant to the California State Assembly’s Committee on Natural Resources. He is a member of the mediation panel for the U.S. District Court, Northern District of California, and creator of the California PUC’s alternative dispute resolution program. In addition, he served as legal director for the Local Government Commission, an environmental and social policy think tank, providing assistance to local governments. He received his BA degree from the University of Michigan, his JD degree from the University of California at Davis, and his MPA degree from Harvard University.

Jessica West

Visiting Assistant Professor of Law, Vermont Law School, and Visiting Researcher, Yale Law School

Before entering teaching, Professor West was a practicing attorney for more than 15 years, focusing on complex trial and appellate litigation. She has successfully represented clients in numerous high-profile cases, including death penalty cases. While in practice, she taught, testified, lectured, and wrote on issues including appellate practice, criminal defense representation standards, death penalty procedures, DNA, and other scientific evidence. She is a member of the bars of Colorado, Oregon, the Tenth and Eleventh Circuit Courts of Appeals, and the U.S. Supreme Court. She received her BA degree from Brown University and her JD degree from the University of Connecticut School of Law.

David A. Wirth

Professor of Law, Boston College Law School

Professor Wirth teaches environmental, administrative, public international, and foreign relations law. Previously, he was senior attorney and codirector of international programs for the Natural Resources Defense Council and attorney-advisor for Oceans and International Environmental and Scientific Affairs for the U.S. Department of State. He is the author of more than five dozen books, articles, and reports on international environmental law and policy for both legal and popular audiences. A graduate of Yale Law School, he holds undergraduate and graduate degrees in chemistry from Princeton and Harvard, respectively.

Steven M. Wise

President, Center for the Expansion of Fundamental Rights, Inc.

The long-term “Nonhuman Rights Project” of the Center for the Expansion of Fundamental Rights, Inc., is preparing to file the first landmark cases that demand such basic common law rights as bodily integrity and bodily liberty for at least some nonhuman animals. Mr. Wise is the author of Rattling the Cage: Toward Legal Rights for Animals (2002), Drawing the Line: Science and the Case for Animal Rights (2002), Though the Heavens May Fall: The Landmark Trial That Led to the End of Human Slavery (2005), An American Trilogy: Death, Slavery, and Dominion along the Banks of the Cape Fear River (2009), and numerous law review articles. He has taught at the Harvard, University of Miami, Lewis and Clark, John Marshall, and St. Thomas law schools, regularly lectures around the world on animal rights jurisprudence, and has practiced animal protection law throughout the United States for 30 years.

Deborah Young

Professor of Law and Director, Center for Advocacy and Clinical Education, Cumberland School of Law, Samford University

Professor Young has taught at Cumberland School of Law since 1997. Previously, she taught at Emory University School of Law, served as an assistant U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia, and was a clerk to Judge Thomas A. Clark of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit. She is coauthor of Federal Sentencing Law and Practice (West Publishing) and an expert on Federal Rules of Evidence, criminal procedure, and trial advocacy. Professor Young earned her BA degree from the University of Kentucky and her JD degree from the University of Michigan Law School.