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 Legal Writing, Vermont Law School
Before joining the faculty at VLS, 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 directs the MELP and LLM Internship Program and teaches Environmental Research and Writing 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.
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.
Cathy A. Costantino
Counsel, Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC)
Ms. Costantino handles complex dispute resolution and litigation matters for the FDIC. She is an adjunct professor at Georgetown University Law School and George Washington University Law School and lectures regularly at Harvard Law School and Pepperdine University School of Law Strauss Institute. She coauthored Designing Conflict Management Systems: A Guide to Creating Productive and Healthy Organizations (Jossey-Bass, 1996) and has published numerous articles. She was the sole U.S. delegate to the United Nations Tripartite Commission on the Social Effects of Structural Change in the Banking Industry in Geneva and was elected Chairperson. Prior to joining the FDIC, she was deputy assistant general counsel of litigation at the Federal Home Loan Bank Board/Federal Savings and Loan Insurance Corporation. Ms. Costantino received her MSW and BA degrees from the Catholic University of America and her JD degree from the University of California at Berkeley (Boalt Hall).
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. 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.
David B. Firestone
Professor of Law, Vermont Law School
Professor Firestone has been a member of the Vermont Law School faculty since 1973. He is admitted to practice in Massachusetts and Vermont. He has been an engineer in the automotive and aerospace industries; an attorney with the Office of Regional Counsel (Boston), U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development; a visiting fellow in the Faculty of Laws, King’s College, London; a lecturer and seminar leader in Eastern Europe, Austria, Micronesia, Madagascar, and Russia; a consultant to the World Bank; a counsel to practicing lawyers; and a member of the Fulbright Senior Specialist Roster. Professor Firestone is the author of Environmental Law for Nonlawyers. He received his BSME degree from Wayne State University and JD degree from Harvard University.
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.
Javier Garcia-Lomas Gago ’10
Attorney at Law, Perez Moreno LLP; Adjunct Professor of Law, University of Seville
Mr. Garcia-Lomas specializes in renewable energy law at one of Spain’s most important environmental law firms, where he manages their energy related litigation. The firm represents developers, utilities, and environmental organizations. He is an associate professor at the University of Seville, where he teaches Administrative Law, Land Use, and Environmental Law. He is also currently pursuing his PhD in Comparative Energy Law. He earned his BA and JD degrees from the University of Seville and his LLM degree from Vermont Law School, where he served as a research associate for the Institute for Energy and the Environment.
Neil Hamilton
Dwight D. Opperman Professor of Law and Director, Agricultural Law Center, Drake University Law School
Professor Hamilton has taught at Drake since 1983. He previously served as an assistant attorney general in the Iowa Department of Justice and as an assistant professor at the University of Arkansas. His areas of expertise include agricultural law, food and the law, the environmental regulation of agriculture, and wind law. He is a past president of the American Agricultural Law Association and has been the chair of the Iowa Food Policy Council and served on the advisory board of the Leopold Center for Sustainable Agriculture. Professor Hamilton earned his BS degree from Iowa State University and his JD degree from the University of Iowa, where he was elected to the Order of the Coif.
Philip J. Harter
Earl F. Nelson Professor Emeritus of the University of Missouri
Formerly director of the Program on Consensus, Democracy, and Governance, and visiting associate professor of law at Vermont Law School, 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 was recently appointed to 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.
Layla Hughes
Senior Program Officer, Oil, Gas and Marine Shipping for the WWF-US Arctic Program
Before joining WWF in 2008, Ms. Hughes was the Assistant Borough Attorney for the North Slope Borough and played a leading role in preparing a legal strategy that resulted in an injunction on oil and gas leasing in the Beaufort Sea. She has also worked as an attorney for Earthjustice and Conservation International. Her work to secure administrative and congressional reform of offshore oil and gas laws has taken on a new urgency in the wake of the BP blowout. She holds a JD from Georgetown University Law Center and a BA in international relations and environmental studies.
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
Smart Grid Project Leader, Institute for Energy and the Environment, Vermont Law School
Dr. Jones has been the director of Power Market Policy for the Long Island Power Authority and the director of Energy Policy for the City of New York. He has also consulted on energy issues as an associate director with Navigant Consulting and Resource Management International. He taught in the Environmental Management and Policy Program at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI), where his doctoral research compared the market-based approach to regulating acid rain in the U.S. to the command and control approach of the European Union. Dr. Jones earned his BS degree from the University of Vermont, his Masters degree from the LBJ School of Public Affairs at the University of Texas at Austin, and his PhD from RPI’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 a research associate at the University of Oxford and an academic fellow of Inner Temple (one of the English Inns of Court). She coordinates International Environmental Law for the LLM program at Cambridge and also lectures at Oxford. Her research focuses on international law and international environmental law. 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 as a rule of law monitor with the United Nations Mission in Liberia 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.
Patrick A. Parenteau
Professor of Law and Senior Counsel, Environmental and Natural Resources Law Clinic, Vermont Law School
Professor Parenteau has served as the director of the Environmental Law Center and handled a number of key cases under the ESA and other environmental statutes, and served as special counsel to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service in the northern spotted owl exemption proceeding. He has also served as commissioner of the Vermont Department of Environmental Conservation, general counsel for the New England Regional Office of U.S. EPA, vice president for conservation of the National Wildlife Federation, and environmental counsel with the Perkins Coie law firm in Portland, Oregon. Professor Parenteau received his BS degree from Regis College, JD degree from Creighton University, and LLM degree in environmental law from George Washington University Law School.
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.
Curtis Pew
Associate Clinical Professor and Attorney-in-Charge, Securities Arbitration Clinic, Hostra University School of Law
Professor Pew supervises law students in representing securities investors, subject to certain income, residency and size-of-claim restrictions, who pursue claims arising from retail securities investments. He has worked as a lawyer specializing in arbitral matters arising in maritime law, and then in arbitration of international commercial and securities-related domestic disputes. Previously, he was an adjunct professor at Cardozo Law School where he taught International Commercial Arbitration as well as coached the school’s Willem C. Vis International Commercial Arbitration Moot team. He received his BA degree from Tulane University, his MPPA degree from the University of Wisconsin, and his JD degree from George Washington 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.
Yvonne Scannell
Associate Professor of Law and Director, Centre for Environmental Law and Policy, Trinity College, Dublin
Professor Scannell teaches Irish and European Environmental Law, Planning Law, and Legal Systems and Methods at Trinity College, Dublin. She has written six books and numerous articles on environmental and planning law and some on constitutional law. She has been consistently nominated as one of Ireland’s leading environmental lawyers in professional surveys. She has served on the boards of Forfas, An Foras Forbartha, Habitat for Humanity, the Irish National Petroleum Corporation, and on the advisory board of the EPA. She has worked for UNDP and the EU in Eastern Europe and she is on the Environmental Panel of the International Court of Arbitration. She also practices as a consultant on environmental and planning law with Arthur Cox, Solicitors. She is a graduate of Trinity College, Dublin and Cambridge University.
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.
Dinah Shelton
Manatt/Ahn Professor of International Law, George Washington University Law School
Professor Shelton has taught at George Washington since 2004. She previously taught international law and was director of the doctoral program in international human rights law at the University of Notre Dame Law School. She has also lectured at the University of California (Davis), Santa Clara University, Stanford University, University of California (Berkeley), the University of Paris, and the University of Strasbourg, France. She is the author of three prize-winning books, Protecting Human Rights in the Americas (coauthored with Thomas Buergenthal), Remedies in International Human Rights Law, and the three-volume Encyclopedia of Genocide and Crimes against Humanity. In 2006, she was awarded the Elisabeth Haub Prize for Environmental Law. In 2009, the General Assembly of the Organization of American States elected her to a four-year term as a member of the Inter-American Human Rights Commission. She received her BA and JD degrees from the University of California at Berkeley.
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
Vice President and Director, Center for the Future of the Oceans, Monterey Bay Aquarium
Previously, Mr. Sutton headed the Marine Fisheries Program at the David & Lucile Packard Foundation, the largest private funder of ocean conservation efforts in North America. He founded and directed World Wildlife Fund’s Endangered Seas Campaign, a global effort to promote the conservation and sustainable use of marine fisheries. He has served as a senior advisor to the secretary of commerce and the secretary of state on marine fishery issues, sitting on two federal advisory committees. He received his BS degree in wildlife biology from Utah State University and his JD degree from George Washington University.
Lea E. Swanson
Director, Office of Stabilization, U.S. Agency for International Development/Afghanistan
Ms. Swanson has been based in Kabul, Afghanistan, since January 2010. She has worked in international development for the past 19 years. She spent 5 years based in the former Soviet Union with USAID and 2 years in Europe, where she served as executive director of the International Institute for Energy Conservation-Europe. She also has worked in Africa, the Asia/Pacific region, and Latin America. Prior to her international posts, she served as a special assistant for policy, planning, and evaluation in the Office of the Assistant Administrator at U.S. EPA. Ms. Swanson earned her MBA degree at Monash University, Australia and her MPA degree at Harvard 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.
Rebecca Tsosie
Professor of Law, Executive Director, Indian Legal Program, Sandra Day O’Connor College of Law, Arizona State University
Professor Tsosie has written and published widely on doctrinal and theoretical issues related to tribal sovereignty, environmental policy, and cultural rights. Professor Tsosie, who is of Yaqui descent, has also worked extensively with tribal governments and organizations. She serves as a Supreme Court justice for the Fort McDowell Yavapai Nation. She teaches in the areas of Indian law, property, bioethics, and critical race theory. She is the coauthor with Robert Clinton and Carole Goldberg of the federal Indian law casebook American Indian Law: Native Nations and the Federal System. She was awarded a Woodrow Wilson Fellowship and received the American Bar Association’s 2002 Spirit of Excellence Award. She is the 2006 recipient of the Judge Learned Hand Award for Public Service. Professor Tsosie received her BA and JD degrees from the University of California, Los Angeles.
Jack Tuholske
Private Practitioner, Missoula, Montana, and Adjunct Professor, University of Montana Law School
Mr. Tuholske specializes in public interest environmental litigation throughout the West. He has been lead counsel for over 45 published decisions, including seminal decisions in Montana environmental, land use, and constitutional law, as well as cases under the federal Endangered Species, Clean Water, and National Environmental Policy Acts. In recognition of his work on behalf of public interest groups, 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. He has been a visiting professor at the University of Montana and Vermont Law School. As a Fulbright Scholar in 2009, he taught courses in climate change and comparative environmental law at the University of Ljubljana in Slovenia. Mr. Tuholske earned his JD degree from the University of Montana.
Pamela Vesilind ’08
Assistant Professor of Law, Vermont Law School
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 firstyear 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.
Jacqueline L. Weaver
A.A. White Professor of Law, University of Houston Law Center
Professor Weaver is a coauthor of the three-volume treatise Texas Law of Oil and Gas, the nationally-used casebook Energy, Economics and the Environment, and the treatise International Petroleum Exploration and Exploitation Agreements. She has written articles on energy markets, sustainable development in the international energy industry, comparative unitization laws in energy-producing nations, energy policy, and traditional oil and gas law topics. She has lectured on international petroleum transactions in Beijing, Lisbon, Bangkok and Uganda. Professor Weaver received her BA degree from Harvard University and her JD degree from the University of Houston.
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.
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