Faculty Directory
  • Faculty

Christophe Courchesne

Titles

  • Associate Dean, Environmental and Experiential Programs
  • Director, Environmental Law Center
  • Co-Director, Environmental Advocacy Clinic
  • Associate Professor of Law

Degrees

  • JD, Harvard University, 2004
  • BA, University of Massachusetts, Amherst, 2001

Contact

Phone: 802-831-1627

Biography

Christophe Courchesne is an associate professor of law and the associate dean for environmental and experiential programs at Vermont Law and Graduate School. As part of this role, Professor Courchesne is the faculty director of the Environmental Law Center, where he oversees the school’s renowned environmental law program, with responsibility to lead its academic programming and the school’s environmental faculty, as well as communications, development, and other external initiatives.

Professor Courchesne also oversees VLGS’s extensive and nationally-ranked JD experiential programs, which include the school’s nine clinics and externship program. He teaches and is co-director of the VLGS Environmental Advocacy Clinic, which provides students with practical, real-world opportunities to represent public-interest nonprofit organizations in environmental and natural resources litigation locally and across the country, particularly climate and environmental justice matters.

Professor Courchesne’s academic expertise centers on environmental protection, climate change, energy regulation, environmental justice, administrative law, civil litigation, and clinical legal education. He especially focuses on the National Environmental Policy Act, the Clean Air Act, climate accountability, and state environmental and climate law and policy.

Professor Courchesne has litigated environmental cases for more than two decades. Before joining Vermont Law and Graduate School in 2022, he was deputy chief of the Energy and Environment Bureau and assistant attorney general at the Massachusetts Attorney General’s Office, leading work on the climate crisis, federal policy, environmental and racial justice, and clean energy. Prior to his bureau leadership, Professor Courchesne was chief of the Environmental Protection Division at the AG’s Office, with oversight of the division’s civil enforcement docket, federal litigation and advocacy challenging Trump-era regulatory rollbacks, and defense of Massachusetts environmental agencies.

With his division and bureau colleagues, Professor Courchesne co-led multistate coalitions in advocacy and litigation to defend the federal Clean Power Plan, clean vehicle emission standards, protective clean air rules, and other climate and environmental initiatives at the federal level. He served as lead environmental counsel for Massachusetts in the Volkswagen diesel deception case, which resulted in the state’s highest-ever civil environmental penalty and a major mitigation package that advanced driver compensation and electric vehicle deployment. He played a leading role in creating the Division’s federal enforcement initiative and in advancing environmental justice efforts. He also litigated state air enforcement and agricultural preservation cases, securing settlements with meaningful civil penalties, injunctive relief, and community benefit projects.

Professor Courchesne was previously a senior attorney at Conservation Law Foundation in its clean energy and climate change program, an associate in the environmental, energy, and land use practices at Goodwin Procter LLP, and a law clerk for the Honorable Robert Cordy at the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court.

Professor Courchesne received his juris doctor, cum laude, from Harvard Law School. He earned a bachelor of arts in English, summa cum laude, from the University of Massachusetts, Amherst.

Professor Courchesne is admitted to practice in Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Vermont, and various federal courts, including the U.S. Supreme Court.

Curriculum Vitae

Expertise

  • Administrative Law
  • Civil Litigation
  • Climate Change
  • Clinical Legal Education
  • Energy Law and Regulation
  • Environmental Enforcement and Regulation
  • Environmental Justice
  • Environmental Law
  • Environmental Litigation
  • State Environmental Law

Departments

  • Environmental Advocacy Clinic
  • Environmental Law Center
  • Faculty