Environmental Law Center

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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 six legal clinics, seven centers and institutes, 60+ 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 Animal Law

Concentration in Climate Law

Concentration in Energy Law

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 Master’s Degrees

1 Environmental Executive Master’s 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

Environmental Law Center Summer

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 study—such as energy law, international environmental law, water law, land use law, animal law, or agricultural law—or wishes to pursue a multidisciplinary approach, the summer program offers a wide array of options.

Summer Scholars and Media Fellows

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.

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.

2021 Video Archive

2020 Video Archive

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.

Listen Here

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.

20th Annual Norman Williams Distinguished Lecture in Land Use Planning and the Law

This year’s speaker is Sarah Mills, Director, Center for EmPowering Communities; Clinical Associate Professor of Practice of Urban Planning, A Alfred Taubman College of Architecture and Urban Planning; and Adjunct Lecturer in Environment and Sustainability, School for Environment and Sustainability, University of Michigan.

DATE AND TIMES:
Thursday, April 10, 2025
5-6 p.m. ET

The talk will also stream live, at vermontlaw.edu/live, however, we encourage in-person attendance.

TITLE:
Navigating an Energy Transition

DESCRIPTION:
The US has only just begun to see the rapid expansion of renewable energy on our landscapes. Technological advancements and reductions in costs for renewable energy have energy models showing that wind and solar may impact as much as 15% of the continental US land area by 2050. The lion’s share of the energy infrastructure that has already been built–and will need to be built–for this energy transformation is sited in rural places. In this talk, I’ll dig into how this infrastructure impacts rural residents and local governments. I’ll also discuss how a web of state policy choices–from siting/zoning authority to property tax policy to utility policy–shape the impacts that renewable infrastructure has on rural communities and the ability to deploy renewables with community goals in mind.

BIO:
Dr. Sarah Mills is the Director of the Center for EmPowering Communities at the University of Michigan’s Graham Sustainability Institute and an Associate Professor of Practice in the Urban and Regional Planning program. Her research looks at how renewable energy development impacts rural communities (positively and negatively), the disparate reactions of rural landowners to wind and solar projects, and how state and local policies facilitate or hinder renewable energy deployment. She has current research projects studying the adoption of zoning ordinances in rural communities across the midwest and the economic impacts of solar on agricultural communities, including landownership trends. She also has funding from Michigan’s State Energy Office to develop tools and resources to help communities across the state incorporate clean energy in their planning and zoning and provide direct technical assistance to communities in setting these policies. Sarah received her doctorate in Urban and Regional Planning at the University of Michigan, where her dissertation looked at the intersection of farmland preservation and wind energy development. She has a master’s in engineering for sustainable development from the University of Cambridge, and a bachelor’s degree in mechanical engineering from Villanova University. She grew up on a farm in Monroe County, Michigan, but now lives in Ann Arbor where she has served on the City Planning Commission since 2014.

The Norman Williams Distinguished Lecture in Land Use Planning and the Law series is named for Norman Williams, who came to Vermont Law School in 1975 after a long and distinguished career in public service and teaching, particularly in the area of land use planning. Professor Williams played a key role in founding the Environmental Law Center. The lecture series is a gift of Frances Yates, trustee of VLGS, in memory of Professor Williams, Charles Yates JD’93, and Anya Yates JD’94.

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.

Parenteau Climate Action Fellowship

The Environmental Law Center and Environmental Advocacy Clinic invite applications from recent or upcoming law graduates to serve as a one-year Climate Action Fellow to begin in August 2025. The position combines an opportunity to conduct academic, legal, and/or policy research on climate law with responsibilities to work with student clinicians in the Environmental Advocacy Clinic on cutting-edge climate litigation and advocacy. The Climate Action Fellowship offers a strong starting point for an academic career in doctrinal or clinical environmental law teaching, and for other opportunities in public-interest climate policy and advocacy. The position honors the climate law leadership of Professor of Law Emeritus and Senior Fellow for Climate Policy Patrick Parenteau.

Apply here.

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Faculty

Eduardo Otero Bakai