Professor David Mears specializes in environmental law and environmental litigation. He has expertise in the major pollution laws (air quality, water quality and hazardous waste management and cleanup), water resources law, federal facilities regulation, and state and federal sovereignty. As director of the Environmental and Natural Resources Law Clinic (ENRLC), he helps students hone their lawyering skills while assisting nonprofit organizations and individuals with environmental problems and conservation projects.

Professor Mears received his BS degree from Cornell University in 1985 and his JD degree, summa cum laude, and MELP degree from Vermont Law School in 1991. Following graduation from law school, he worked as an assistant attorney general in the Texas Office of the Attorney General and then as a senior attorney with the Texas Natural Resource Conservation Commission. He left Texas to serve as the energy and environmental policy director with the Texas Office for State-Federal Relations in Washington, DC, then served both as a trial attorney and counselor for state and local affairs with the U.S. Department of Justice, Environment and Natural Resources Division. In 1998, he was appointed senior assistant attorney general in the Washington Office of the Attorney General, Ecology Division. Professor Mears joined the Vermont Law School faculty in 2005.