June 20–22, 2019
Vermont Law School

 

Keynote Speaker: “The Importance of Teaching about Climate”

Bill McKibben, Keynote Speaker
Founder, 350.org
Bill McKibben is an author and environmentalist. His 1989 book The End of Nature is regarded as the first book for a general audience about climate change; he has gone on to write a dozen more books. He is a founder of 350.org, the first planet-wide, grassroots climate change movement. He is the Schumann Distinguished Scholar in Environmental Studies at Middlebury College.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Keynote Panel: “Comparing Educational Theories”

John Echeverria, Moderator
Professor of Law, Vermont Law School
John Echeverria teaches Property, Water Resources, and Legal Adaptation to Climate Change. Prior to joining the VLS faculty in 2009, he served for 12 years as Executive Director of the Georgetown Environmental Law & Policy Institute at Georgetown University Law Center. He also was General Counsel of the National Audubon Society and General Counsel and Conservation Director of American Rivers, Inc.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Helen Kang, Keynote Panelist
Professor of Law, Golden Gate University School of Law
Helen Kang is the Director of the Environmental Law and Justice Clinic at Golden Gate University. She specializes in Environmental Law, Citizen Enforcement of Environmental Laws, Environmental Justice, and Legal Education in Korea. Her article “Respect for Community Narratives of Environmental Injustice: Dignity Right to Be Heard and Believed,” is forthcoming in the Widener Law Review (2019).

 

 

 

 

 

 

Richard Lazarus, Keynote Panelist
Howard and Katherine Aibel Professor of Law, Harvard Law School
Richard Lazarus teaches environmental law, natural resources law, Supreme Court advocacy, and torts. He has represented the U.S., state and local governments, and environmental groups in the U.S. Supreme Court in 40 cases. His primary areas of scholarship are environmental and natural resources law. Prior to joining the Harvard law faculty, he was on the faculty at Georgetown University.
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Michael Vandenbergh, Keynote Panelist
David Daniels Allen Distinguished Chair of Law, Vanderbilt Law School
Michael Vandenbergh is Director of the Climate Change Research Network and Co-director of the Energy, Environment and Land Use Program at Vanderbilt. His research explores the relationship between formal legal regulation and informal social regulation of individual and corporate behavior. His corporate work explores private environmental governance and the influence of social norms on firm behavior.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Panel: “Teaching Climate without Despair”

Jennifer Rushlow, Moderator
Associate Dean for Environmental Programs, Vermont Law School
Jenny Rushlow is Director of the Environmental Law Center and Associate Professor of Law. Prior to coming to VLS, she was a Senior Attorney and Director of Farm and Food at Conservation Law Foundation in Boston. Before that, she worked in private practice at the law firm Anderson & Kreiger. She argued and won a landmark climate law case before the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court, Kain v. Department of Environmental Protection (2016).

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Shalanda Baker, Panelist
Professor of Law, Public Policy and Urban Affairs, Northeastern University School of Law
Shalanda Baker teaches courses related to her research interests in environmental law and energy law. Before joining the NUSL faculty, she was an associate professor of law at the University of Hawai’i, where she was the founding director of the Energy Justice Program. In 2016, she won a Fulbright award and spent a year in Mexico exploring energy reform, climate change and indigenous rights.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Ann Carlson, Panelist
Shirley Shapiro Professor of Environmental Law, UCLA School of Law
Ann Carlson is the Faculty Co-Director of the Emmett Institute on Climate Change and the Environment at UCLA. She is a leading scholar of climate change and air pollution law and policy and the co-author of a top casebook on Environmental Law (with Dan Farber and William Boyd). She teaches Climate Change and Energy Law, Environmental Law and Policy, and Responses to Climate Change When the Federal Government Retreats.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Melissa Powers, Panelist
Jeffrey Bain Faculty Scholar and Professor of Law, Lewis & Clark Law School
Melissa Powers is Director of the Green Energy Institute at Lewis & Clark, an organization that designs policies to a transition to a zero-carbon energy system. She teaches climate change law, electricity regulation, renewable energy law, the Clean Air Act, administrative law, and torts. Her research focuses on energy reform, climate change mitigation, and pollution control.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Panel: “Undivided Environmentalism”

Laurie Beyranevand, Moderator
Associate Dean for Academic Affairs and Professor of Law, Vermont Law School
Laurie Beyranevand is Director of the Center for Agriculture and Food Systems at VLS, where she teaches Food Regulation and Policy. She has published a number of scholarly articles and book chapters that focus on the connections between human health and the food system. She is an appointed member of the Academic Programs Committee for the Food and Drug Law Institute.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Marianne Engelman-Lado, Panelist
Professor, Schools of Public Health and Forestry and Environmental Studies, Yale University
Marianne Engelman-Lado will director VLS’s new Environmental Justice Clinic in 2019–20. She is an environmental justice lawyer and advocate. Her career has included serving as a senior staff attorney at Earthjustice, general counsel for New York Lawyers for the Public Interest, and staff attorney for the NAACP Legal Defense & Education Fund.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Margot Pollans, Panelist

Associate Professor of Law, Pace Law School

Margot Pollans is Faculty Director of the Pace-NRDC Food Law Initiative. Previously, she was the inaugural academic fellow at UCLA’s Resnick Program for Food Law and Policy, and a Staff Attorney and Clinical Teaching Fellow at Georgetown University Law Center’s Institute for Public Representation. She is the coauthor of a forthcoming casebook on food law and policy.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edward Richards, Panelist

Clarence W. Edwards Professor of Law and John P. Laborde Endowed Professorship in Energy Law, LSU Law School

Edward Richards is the Director of the Climate Change Law and Policy Project at LSU, which focuses on the unique risks faced by the Mississippi Delta, and provides impartial analysis of adaptation strategies and guidance for policy makers. He is researching the impact of climate change on sea level rise and extreme weather events on coastal cities and ecological systems.

 

 

 

 

 

Panel: “The Practitioner’s Perspective”

Thomas McHenry, Moderator
President and Dean and Professor of Law, Vermont Law School
Tom McHenry is a nationally recognized environmental law attorney. Formerly a partner with Gibson Dunn in Los Angeles, he has provided legal counsel internationally on environmental and natural resources legislation and regulations in Asia, Africa and the Caribbean for the World Bank and the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations. He teaches Water Quality Law and Frontier Issues in Environmental Law at VLS.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Susan Cooke, Panelist
Counsel, McDermott Will & Emery
Susan Cooke advises clients on U.S. and international environmental regulatory, compliance, and policy matters and on domestic and cross-border hazardous material transportation requirements. Her practice includes regulatory analyses and counseling, enforcement actions, permitting and registration activities, brownfields redevelopment, transactions, and development of legislative and regulatory proposals. Previously, she served as an enforcement attorney in the New England Regional Office of the U.S. EPA.

 

 

 

 

 

 

John Cruden, Panelist
Principal, Beveridge & Diamond, P.C.
John Cruden provides strategic counsel on environmental and natural resources litigation, civil and criminal enforcement, and compliance. For more than two decades, he served as a senior leader on environmental matters at the U.S. DOJ. He is the former President of the Environmental Law Institute and the former Chair of the ABA Section on Environment, Energy, and Natural Resources.

 

 

 

 

 

Jim Murphy, Panelist
Senior Counsel, National Wildlife Federation’s Climate and Energy Program
Jim Murphy coordinates NWF’s nationwide legal and policy advocacy on energy development and climate change related issues. He has been with NWF since 2003, also having worked on environmental issues such as water quality and wetlands, endangered species, and the National Environmental Policy Act. He has represented NWF and other conservation groups in several precedent setting cases before the U.S. Supreme Court and Federal Circuit Courts. He has an LLM, summa cum laude, from Vermont Law School.

 

 

 

 

 

Panel: “Old Statutes with New Issues”

Hillary Hoffmann, Moderator
Professor of Law, Vermont Law School
Hillary Hoffmann teaches Natural Resources Law, Native American Law, and Administrative Law, as well as a new field course in Utah on public lands and tribal rights. Her scholarship addresses the systems governing natural resource use and allocation on public lands and tribal lands and cultural resource protection on federal, state, and tribal lands.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Robin Kundis Craig, Panelist
James I. Farr Presidential Endowed Chair of Law, University of Utah College of Law
Robin Kundis Craig researches the law and policy of "all things water," including water rights, water pollution, and ocean and coastal issues, as well as climate change adaptation, the intersection of constitutional and environmental law, and the food-energy-water nexus. She has authored, co-authored, or edited 11 books, 21 books chapters, and over 100 articles in both law and scientific journals.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Sarah Krakoff, Panelist
Associate Dean for Faculty Affairs and Research and Moses Lasky Professor of Law, University of Colorado School of Law
Sarah Krakoff’s areas of expertise include American Indian law, natural resources and public land law, and environmental justice. She is the co-author of American Indian Law: Cases and Commentary (with Bob Anderson and Bethany Berger). She also runs the Law School's Acequia Project, which provides free legal services to low-income farmers. Before joining the Colorado faculty, she directed CU's American Indian Law Clinic.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Mark Squillace, Panelist
Raphael J. Moses Professor of Law, University of Colorado School of Law
Mark Squillace teaches Natural Resources Law at CU. He served as the Director of CU’s Natural Resources Law Center until 2013. Before joining the Colorado law faculty, he taught at the University of Toledo College of Law and the University of Wyoming College of Law. He is a former Fulbright scholar and the author or co-author of numerous articles and books on natural resources and environmental law.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Dinner Remarks: “Diversity in the Environmental Law Academy”

Mark Latham, Speaker
Professor of Law, Vermont Law School
Mark Latham teaches Environmental Law and Environmental Issues in Business Transactions. He specializes in environmental issues that arise in corporate and commercial real estate transactions and brownfields redevelopment. His research focus includes the intersection of business and environmental law. Prior to joining the VLS faculty, he was a partner and chair of the environmental practice group at Gardner, Carton, and Douglas.