Environmental Law Center
Overview
Environmental challenges have never been more pressing or more complex. But at Vermont Law and Graduate School’s Environmental Law Center, a new generation of leaders is rising to meet them.
The Environmental Law Center (ELC) oversees the most comprehensive graduate environmental law program in the country. Consistently ranked among the nation’s best by U.S. News & World Report, our environmental law program includes five legal clinics, six centers and institutes, 67 environmental law courses, and 76 environmental faculty. We prepare students to work on the frontlines of environmental advocacy, energy and climate justice, animal law and protection, as well as the sustainable food movement. We develop leaders who can work with environmental and public policy issues within the framework of the legal system and are prepared to meet the environmental challenges of the 21st century.
Curriculum
Vermont Law School offers JD students the option to add a concentration to their degree. Environmental law students may pursue specialized concentrations in Animal Law, Climate Law, Energy Law, Food and Agriculture Law, Land Use Law, and Water Resources Law. Concentrations are a tangible indication demonstrating to prospective employers that students have mastered a specific subject matter area.
For more information on required courses, visit the concentration pages listed below.
Concentration in Food and Agricultural Law
Environmental Law Center Statistics
The Environmental Law Center hosts the nation’s premier environmental law program.
ENVIRONMENTAL FACULTY
76 Total Faculty
20 Regular Faculty
29 Summer Session Adjuncts
20 Online-only Adjuncts
ENVIRONMENTAL LAW AND POLICY COURSES
60+ Total Courses
26 Summer Session-only Courses
7 Environmental Field Courses
9 Animal Protection Courses
8 Climate Courses
9 Energy Regulation Courses
9 Environmental Justice and Public Health Courses
12 Food and Agriculture Courses
10 International Environmental Courses
11 Natural Resources Courses
6 Sustainability and Business Courses
ENVIRONMENTAL DEGREES AND PROGRAMS
6 Clinics
7 Centers and Programs
5 Environmental Masterโs Degrees
1 Environmental Executive Masterโs Degree
3 Environmental LLM Degrees
FIRST IN NATION FOR
Environmental Justice Course
Animal Rights Law Course
Environmental Tax Policy Course
ABA Acquiesced Masters Degree For Non-Lawyers
Summer at the Environmental Law Center
The Environmental Law Center assembles an exciting group of scholars, students, and distinguished visitors to study environmental law and policy during the most glorious time of year in northern New England.
In addition to Vermont Law and Graduate School (VLGS) students, our Summer Session is open to students from other schools and lifelong learners. We welcome students enrolled at other law schools and graduate institutions nationally and internationally, practicing attorneys, planners, state and federal agency personnel, upper-level undergraduate students (with the director’s permission), teachers, journalists, citizen advocates, and more.
Courses are taught by faculty from VLGS and other schools, international law scholars, leaders of non-profit advocacy groups, and private practitioners. Whether a student is interested in a specific area of studyโsuch as energy law, international environmental law, water law, land use law, animal law, or agricultural lawโor wishes to pursue a multidisciplinary approach, the summer program offers a wide array of options.
To read course descriptions, please see the course catalog linked below
Summer Course Catalog
Browse our list of nearly 30 environmental law summer courses and meet summer faculty.
Plan Your Summer
Located on the banks of the scenic White River in South Royalton, Vermont Law and Graduate School (VLGS) is an ideal location for students to both study and play in summertime.
Hiking, swimming, tubing, biking, and cookouts are just some of the many outdoor activities students enjoy while not in class. Students also take time to sample fine dining, arts, entertainment, and other cultural attractions available near the campus and in nearby cities and towns such as Montpelier, Burlington, Woodstock, and Hanover, NH. Students not only have an opportunity to relax and form lasting connections with one another, but also mingle with the expert lecturers who come to campus each summer. Local summer housing is available on campus and in the surrounding towns.
If you have questions about the VLGS Summer Session, please contact Courtney Collins, Assistant Director of the Environmental Law Center, at ccollins@vermontlaw.edu.
Application and Registration
Vermont Law and Graduate School students (including Masters, JD/Masters, and LLM degree students) need not apply to enroll in the summer session, but instead will register for courses starting in early April by following instructions distributed by the Registrar’s Office. Non-VLGS students, including auditors, should apply to the summer session using our online form (available in early March).
Who is eligible?
These are graduate level courses; normally, only those with undergraduate degrees will be considered for registration. However, undergraduate students may enroll with the director’s permission. Law and graduate students currently enrolled at other institutions are eligible. Credits transfer at the discretion of the receiving school. Check with your institution if they will accept transfer credits from VLGS. Class registration is subject to approval and capacity limits.
Non-Degree Students or Transfer Credit
APPLICATION: If you are interested in taking classes as a non-degree student or to transfer credits to your home institution, apply here starting in early March.
Once your application has been submitted and approved, you will receive an email confirming setup of a personal VLGS account and providing instructions on how to access this account. You may then register for classes starting in May.
Degree-Seeking Students
VLGS students (including Masters, summer-only Masters, JD/Masters, and LLM degree students) need not apply to enroll in the summer session, but instead can register for courses starting in early April, following instructions distributed by the Registrar’s Office. If you are interested in a Master’s or LLM degree program or if you wish to combine one with your JD degree, please apply here.
Once your application is reviewed, you will receive more information on the steps to enroll. For more information about registration, tuition, refunds, and financial aid, refer to the summer course catalog.
Degree Information
Please note that Summer Session registration is not an application to the LLM degree programs. The links below provide information for those seeking admittance to the degree programs, including the summers-only master’s degree option.
Summer Resources
Looking for a place to stay? Recreational Activities? Transportation? Check out the following helpful links.
Summer Scholars
Vermont Law and Graduate School invites leaders in the fields of environmental, energy, agriculture, animal advocacy, and international environmental law and journalism to serve as Distinguished Summer Scholars and Media Fellows in residency during the VLGS Summer Session. Each visiting scholar or fellow delivers a public lecture, participates in informal social events on campus, and is available to meet with students and faculty individually. These distinguished visitors are a significant intellectual resource for our summer students and also offer valuable networking opportunities.
Environmental Law Scholar
Gerald Torres, Professor of Environmental Justice and Professor of Law, Yale Law School
Gerald Torres has spent his career examining the intrinsic connections between the environment, agricultural and food systems, and social justice. His research into how race and ethnicity impact environmental policy has been influential in the emergence and evolution of the field of environmental justice. His work also includes the study of conflicts over resource management between Native American tribes, states, and the federal government.
Previously, Torres taught at Cornell Law School, the University of Texas Law School, and the University of Minnesota Law School, serving as an associate dean at both. He is also a former president of the Association of American Law Schools and served as deputy assistant attorney general for the Environment and Natural Resources Division of the U.S. Department of Justice during the Clinton administration.
Torresโs past work has examined how U.S. regulations have created racially or ethnically marginalized communities that bear a disproportionate share of environmental burdens and also has focused on developing strategies to improve governmental decision-making. He is also a leading scholar in critical race theory โ a theoretical framework that examines questions of race and racism from a legal standpoint. His book The Minerโs Canary: Enlisting Race, Resisting Power, Transforming Democracy, coauthored with Lani Guinier, was described as โone of the most provocative and challenging books on race produced in years.โ
Education:
LL.M. – University of Michigan Law School
J.D. – Yale Law School
A.B. – Stanford University
Sustainable Agriculture and Food Systems Scholar
Mavis Gragg, CEO HeirShares
Mavis Gragg is a self-described โdeath and dirtโ attorney and conservation professional empowering families to use real estate as a source for intergenerational resiliency and wealth. She currently serves as the Director of the Sustainable Forestry and African American Land Retention and as the CEO of HeirShares, which is building groundbreaking technology to facilitate affordable solutions for family real estate ownership.
Mavis chairs the North Carolina Parks and Recreation Trust Fund Authority and previously chaired the board of Triangle Land Conservancy. In her free time, Mavis enjoys swimming, hikes, art, and flying her Mavic Mini drone.
Education:
J.D. & Master’s – Pepperdine University School of Law
B.A. – University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
Animal Law Scholar
Iselin Gambert, Director, Fundamentals of Lawyering Program; Professor, Fundamentals of Lawyering; Faculty Co-Director, Animal Legal Education Initiative, George Washington University
Iselin Gambert joined the GW Law faculty in 2009 and currently teaches in and serves as the Director of the Fundamentals of Lawyering (FL) Program. She is also an advisor in GW’s Inns of Court Program. Professor Gambert is an active member of the national and international legal writing and lawyering skills communities. In 2020 she was re-elected to a second four-year term on the Board of Directors of the Legal Writing Institute (LWI), a nonprofit organization dedicated to improving legal communication, building the discipline of legal writing, and improving the status of legal writing faculty across the country. She served as LWI’s inaugural Communications and Public Relations officer and is currently the Board Secretary. From 2013 to 2017, she served as the co-editor-in-chief of the Second Draft: The Magazine of the Legal Writing Institute. She also served on the Site Committee for the 2014 and 2016 LWI Biennial Conference.
Professor Gambert is an internationally recognized scholar whose work spans multiple fields including legal writing and writing center pedagogy, feminist legal theory, animal law, critical animal studies, critical race theory, and food law and policy. Her goal with her current scholarship is to ask timely questions about the ways in which political, legal, and cultural forces impact our daily lives and our relationship with food and other animals. In 2022 her article “Should the Great Food Transformation be fake-meat free? Considering strategies for a future of food that is kinder to people, animals, and the planet,” was published in a special Future of Food volume of the Business Entrepreneurship & Tax Law Review, and her article “I Want You to Panic: Leveraging the Rhetoric of Fear and Rage for the Future of Food” was published in the Journal of Food Law & Policy.
Professor Gambert is the faculty co-director of GW Lawโs Animal Legal Education Initiative, a project dedicated to developing Animal Law as a stand-alone legal discipline that is fully integrated into the legal academy. In 2023 she was an invited participant of the Law Lecturerโs Workshop hosted by the Cambridge Centre for Animal Rights Law. She also developed and teaches a course called Gender, Race, Species, which explores power, privilege, and oppression in law and society through the lens of gender, race, and species.
Professor Gambert spent the 2017-18 academic year as a visiting researcher at the Lund University Critical Animal Studies Network in Lund, Sweden, where she co-taught an interdisciplinary course called Critical Animal Studies – Animals in Society, Culture and the Media. She has written a number of op-eds and scholarly articles on the subject of milk, one of the most ubiquitous and heavily regulated substances on the planetโand perhaps one of the most contested. Her 2019 Brooklyn Law Review article “Got Mylk? The Disruptive Possibilities of Plant Milk” was identified as a โNotable & Quotableโ in the Wall Street Journal. She was also selected to be part of the U.S. Feminist Judgments Project, for which she wrote a commentary on Frontiero v. Richardson, which was published in the 2016 book Feminist Judgments: Rewritten Opinions of the United States Supreme Court by Cambridge University Press.
In 2014, Professor Gambert was awarded an Endeavour Executive Fellowship and spent three months as a Visiting Scholar at Melbourne Law School (MLS), the top-ranked law school in Australia. While at MLS, she collaborated with faculty at three area law schools on best practices for implementing wellness and professional development training in legal education. She also conducted workshops for Australian law faculty and legal professionals on best practices in legal writing, training, and strategies for providing effective written feedback on legal writing assignments.
Prior to joining the faculty, Professor Gambert clerked for Judge Ronna Lee Beck at the DC Superior Court, Civil Division, and worked as an attorney and legal writer for a local public interest advocacy organization. She graduated with honors from GW Law, where she was a two-year writing fellow in the Legal Research and Writing Program, the executive notes editor of the American Intellectual Property Law Association Quarterly Journal, and an editor and publication committee member of the GW Law Student Bar Association Student Legal Writing Review. She was a clinical fellow in the International Human Rights Clinic and received the National Association of Women Lawyers Outstanding Law Graduate Award upon graduation. She is barred in New York State and the District of Columbia.
Education:
J.D. – George Washington University
B.A. – Pomona College
Climate Law Scholar
Richard Wallsgrove, Associate Professor; Co-Director, Environmental Law Program; Director, Environmental Law Clinic, William S. Richardson School of Law, University of Hawai’i at Mฤnoa
Richard Wallsgrove serves as the faculty advisor to the Environmental Law Program. He teaches in a variety of areas, including energy policy, international environmental law, business associations, and contracts. He also works with the Pacific Regional Integrated Sciences and Assessments program to analyze climate adaptation policies for freshwater resources in island settings.
Prior to joining the law school, he served as Policy Director for the Blue Planet Foundation, where he advocated for clean energy policies including Hawaiiโs first-in-the-nation 100% renewable portfolio standard. Among other distinctions, he served as an editor-in chief of the University of Hawaiโi Law Review, and in 2014 he was named to the Pacific Business News โForty Under 40โ list of community and business leaders in Hawaiโi.
Education:
J.D. – University of of Hawaiโi William S. Richardson School of Law School of Law
M.S. – University of Hawaiโi School of Ocean and Earth Science and Technology
B.S. – University of California at Berkeley
Energy Law Scholar
Heather Payne, Professor Law, Seton Hall University School of Law
Heather Payne is a Professor at Seton Hall University School of Law and a leader in the areas of energy law, environmental law, and evolving regulatory policy. A former chemical engineer and corporate executive, she brings a deep understanding of both the technical and economic implications of policies to address new realities in a carbon- and water-constrained world. Before joining the Seton Hall law faculty in 2018, Professor Payne was Fellow and Assistant Director of the Center for Climate, Energy, Environment and Economics (CE3) at the University of North Carolina School of Law. Prior to entering academia, she clerked for Judge Martha Geer on the North Carolina Court of Appeals, and worked with Sears Holdings Corporation and Honeywell International. Professor Payne holds a BChE in Chemical Engineering where she graduated with High Honors from the Georgia Institute of Technology, and a J.D. from University of North Carolina School of Law, where she graduated with High Honors and served as a member of the North Carolina Law Review and Symposium Editor for Environmental Law Project.
Education:
J.D. –ย University of North Carolina School of Law
B.Ch.E. – Georgia Institute of Technology
Summer Media Fellowships
Think like a lawyer. Report like a journalist.
Enhance your journalism skills and deepen your understanding of environmental, agriculture and food systems, or animal law and policy with a Media Fellowship at one of the nation’s top environmental law schools.
Every summer, Vermont Law and Graduate School’s Environmental Law Center brings together legal educators, policymakers, practicing lawyers, and other leaders in their fields to share their expertise in our Summer Session.
Media fellows have access to our distinguished faculty and visiting policy leaders. They can meet for on- or off-record conversations with these experts, developing new insights, meeting new sources, and gaining renewed enthusiasm for covering the critical issues in climate change, animal law, energy, food and agriculture, and other areas. Each fellow will choose to audit a course from a selection of topics within their specific fellowship category.
Our two Environmental Law Media Fellows and Food and Agriculture Law Media Fellow may audit one two-week, two-credit environmental course in June or July. These fellows will receive a $1,250 stipend, free housing, and a tuition waiver (travel not included).
Thanks to funding from the American Society for the Protection of Cruelty to Animalsยฎ (ASPCAยฎ), our two Animal Law Media Fellows will also receive free housing, a tuition waiver, a $500-$1,900 stipend, and travel reimbursement. One fellow may audit Science of Animal Law and Policy, Animal Welfare Law, or The Farm Bill. Another applicant will be selected to participate in the Undercover Investigations of Animal Operations weekend intensive.
View the Summer Session Course Catalog for all course descriptions and schedules for more information.
Media fellows also take part in the Summer Session’s lunch series, “Hot Topics in Environmental Law,” delivering a 45-minute, informal lecture on an environmental, food and agriculture, or animal law and policy topic of their choosing. Outside of classroom time, fellows can also enjoy the beauty of our campus, historic South Royalton, and rural Vermont. Family members are welcome.
Fellowships are open to journalists who cover issues such as natural resources, energy, legal affairs, public health, food and agriculture, animal law and policy, and other environment-related subjects. They are open to staff, freelance, and independent reporters, writers, editors, and producers who are working full-time as journalists. Journalism students and teachers, public relations practitioners, and contributors to newsletters, magazines, and other media controlled by industry, government, or advocacy groups are not eligible.
Fellows are selected based on the quality of their ability to reach a broad audience including the applicant’s work history, samples, and commitment to covering environmental law and policy, animal protection, or agriculture and farm systems topics and their potential for increasing understanding of these issues nationwide.
VLGS looks for journalists who are from different geographic areas, at different career stages, in different types of media, and who work for a variety of news organizations. Journalists from BIPOC, LGBTQIA+, and other underrepresented communities are encouraged to apply.
How to Apply
The application 2025 fellowships will be posted here. For questions or inquiries, please contact ELC@vermontlaw.edu.
“Attending Vermont Law School this summer was immensely educational. It’s so rare to have the opportunity to spend two weeks burrowing into a single topic, and it was a huge privilege to do so in the idyllic surroundings of South Royalton. In addition to attending class, I had the chance to connect face-to-face and on Zoom with law school faculty, all of whom are doing exciting research relevant to my beat. I would recommend this fellowship for anyone reporting on animals and agriculture.”
โClaire Brown, The Counter
โI recommend this fellowship to any reporter covering the environment. Not only do you have to know the science, but VLS helps you to know the law. In fact, I still keep my textbooks from that summer as reference materials.โ
โSeth Borenstein, AP
“Vermont Law School has always been a place to turn for well-informed, helpful legal sources on environmental issues. Spending two weeks there as a media fellow lets you strengthen the relationship in important ways: schmoozing with the faculty in relaxed settings, engaging in group conversations around the big picture, presenting your own work in a noon lecture, sounding out an expert on a narrow aspect of the law that lies at the heart of a big investigative project. Other students were friendly and engaged as well. I took an intensive class taught by a VLS graduate who is the leading expert in her specialty, found it challenging and learned an enormous amount in eight packed mornings. But I also had time to bike in the hills, dine with locals, and paddle a kayak within a few feet of a family of loons. Five stars.”
โJack Cushman, InsideClimate News
“It was a great reliefโand a pleasureโto spend two entire weeks simply digging into one subject. I was able to build considerable depth in a topic that is likely to gain prominence on the public agenda. I feel much better prepared to report knowledgeably on the topic (Arctic oil exploration). And I also seized the chance to wander into offices and engage people throughout the law school. A first-rate experience.”
โRichard Harris, NPR
“The two weeks at VLS were refreshing and invigorating, a chance to step back from the hurly-burly of news deadlines and explore new directions. From full-time faculty like Pat Parenteau, Laurie Ristino, and Craig Pease I gained a fuller appreciation of the bright and committed scholars you have on your faculty. I’ve added a few new names to my Rolodex, to be sure.”
โTimothy Wheeler, Baltimore Sun
โVermont Law School gave me the rare chance to spend two focused weeks studying the law and policy behind the environmental issues I write about. My course, Earth Law, was engaging and thought-provoking. The faculty shared its expertise through lectures on timely topics and opened their doors to me for one-on-one discussions. I’d recommend the fellowship to any journalist seeking a broader understanding of environmental law.โ
โTony Barboza, Los Angeles Times
Hot Topics Summer Lecture Series
Each summer the Environmental Law Center hosts the Hot Topics in Environmental Law lecture series. On Tuesdays and Thursdays at noon, VLGS faculty and invited experts host lectures on a variety of current issues in environmental law and policy. Vermont Bar Association Continuing Legal Education (CLE) credit is available.
Lectures are free and open to the public. Access recordings of past events below.
2024 Video Archive
2023 Video Archive
2022 Video Archive
2021 Video Archive
- Hot Topics in Environmental Law Summer Lecture Series
- Norman Williams Distinguished Lecture in Land Use Planning and the Law: Molly Mowery
2020 Video Archive
- Hot Topics in Environmental Law Summer Lecture Series
- Current Issues in Animal Law Lecture Series
- Annual Douglas Costle Lecture: Marianne Engelman Lado
- Norman Williams Distinguished Lecture in Land Use Planning and the Law: Anita Earls
Hothouse Earth Podcast
ELC faculty and staff are joined by experts in environmental law to provide concise, accessible conversation on the most pressing issues of our time.
Colloquium on Environmental Scholarship
Since 2009, Vermont Law and Graduate School has hosted an annual Colloquium on Environmental Scholarship. Colloquium participants are environmental law faculty in the U.S. and abroad. This event offers environmental law scholars the opportunity to present their works-in-progress, to get feedback from their colleagues, and to meet and interact with those who are also teaching and researching in areas related to environmental and natural resources law, or any related specialty areas.
Emerging Environmental Law Curriculum Conference
Environmental law professors assemble regularly to discuss scholarship, but there are fewer opportunities to gather with our peers from other schools to grow our skills as teachers. Join Vermont Law & Graduate School’s Environmental Law Center and colleagues from across the country for a conference designed for passionate environmental law faculty dedicated to providing future environmental leaders with cutting edge legal education.
This June 2024 conference builds on the first Emerging Environmental Law Curriculum Conference in 2019 and the subsequent 2021 curriculum roundtable series (transcripts and analysis published in Vermont Law Review, Vol. 46: Book 4). We aim to reconvene the curriculum conference every five years to share updated learnings and techniques for teaching emerging environmental law.
This conference will expand on the issues explored in our earlier gatherings as well as dive into new discussions of innovation in and out of the classroom. The conference will feature faculty panelists from law schools around the U.S.
People
Faculty
Eduardo Otero Bakai
Laurie Beyranevand JD’03
- Director, Center for Agriculture and Food Systems
- Professor of Law
In Memoriam – Richard Brooks
- Professor of Law Emeritus
- Founding Director, Environmental Law Center
Genevieve Byrne
- Professor of Law
- Staff Attorney, Farm & Energy Initiative
Jenny Carter
- Professor of Law
- Staff Attorney
Christophe Courchesne
- Interim Director, Environmental Law Center
- Director, Environmental Advocacy Clinic
- Associate Professor
Michael Dworkin
- Professor of Law Emeritus
- Founding Director, Institute for Energy and the Environment
Stephen Dycus
- Professor of Law Emeritus
John Echeverria
- Professor of Law
David B. Firestone
- Professor of Law
Mia Montoya Hammersley
- Director, Environmental Justice Clinic
Mark James
- Interim Director, Institute for Energy and the Environment
- Associate Professor, Maverick Lloyd School for the Environment
- Associate Professor of Law, Vermont Law School
In Memoriam – Kevin B. Jones
- Director, Institute for Energy and the Environment
- Professor of Energy Technology and Policy
Siu Tip Lam
- Director, U.S.-Asia Partnerships for Environmental Law
- Professor of Law
Mark Latham
- Professor of Law Emeritus
Yanmei Lin
- Professor of Law
- Deputy Director, U.S.-Asia Partnerships for Environmental Law
Reed Elizabeth Loder
- Professor of Law
Marc Mihaly
- Professor of Law Emeritus
Janet Milne
- Director, Environmental Tax Policy Institute
- Professor of Law
Pat Parenteau
- Professor of Law Emeritus
- Senior Fellow for Climate Policy, Environmental Law Center
Jennifer K. Rushlow
- Professor of Law
- Environmental Law Center
Christine Ryan
- Environmental Law Librarian
- Associate Professor of Law
Carlson Swafford
Joan Vogel
- Professor of Law
Delcianna Winders
- Director, Animal Law and Policy Institute
- Associate Professor of Law
- Faculty Representative, Vermont Law and Graduate School Board of Trustees
L. Kinvin Wroth
- Professor of Law Emeritus
Administration
Courtney Collins
- Assistant Director
Christophe Courchesne
- Interim Director, Environmental Law Center
- Director, Environmental Advocacy Clinic
- Associate Professor
Dee Gish
- Executive Assistant, Maverick Lloyd School for the Environment (MLSE)
Donna Kowalewski
- Environmental Communications Specialist
Anne Linehan
- Director, Graduate Programs
- Staff Director, Environmental Law Center
Environmental Law Center News and Events
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Additional Resources
Environmental Law and Policy Brochure
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Environmental Law Center
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802-831-1000
elc@vermontlaw.edu
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