Course Catalog

This course provides an introduction to the laws and regulations we use to address environmental harms. It focuses on the major pollution control statutes, particularly the Clean Air Act, Clean Water Act, Resource Conservation and Recovery Act, Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation and Recovery Act, and Toxic Substances Control Act. We will also examine the role of the courts in interpreting these statutes as well as the underlying scientific, economic, and policy rationales for environmental protection. Recurring themes will include the balance of federal and state authority, the influence of interest groups (both industry and environmental organizations) on environmental policy, and the disparate impact of pollution on vulnerable populations. The course will also cover recent developments in administrative and constitutional law that have significant implications for environmental regulation, such as the major questions and non-delegation doctrines.

• Type: Upper Class

The Clinic, which was founded in 1983, teaches students to be effective advocates for the National Wildlife Federation, other environmental justice and conservation organizations, and local governments. The course has both a clinical and a classroom component. For clinical work, students participate in administrative and civil litigation, comment on proposed rules and permits, submit public records requests, and draft legislation. Topics include environmental justice, climate change, natural resources & wildlife management, pollution control, and utility regulation. In the classroom, the focus is on representing organizations, practicing in an administrative law framework, effective client counseling, improving research skills (including through the use of AI), and obtaining public records. Students must enroll concurrently in the 4-credit clinic and the 3-credit seminar. Credits count toward New York’s pro bono requirement. There are no prerequisites or corequisites, but having taken courses that cover administrative or environmental law would certainly be helpful.

• Type: Clinic

The Clinic, which was founded in 1983, teaches students to be effective advocates for the National Wildlife Federation, other environmental justice and conservation organizations, and local governments. The course has both a clinical and a classroom component. For clinical work, students participate in administrative and civil litigation, comment on proposed rules and permits, submit public records requests, and draft legislation. Topics include environmental justice, climate change, natural resources & wildlife management, pollution control, and utility regulation. In the classroom, the focus is on representing organizations, practicing in an administrative law framework, effective client counseling, improving research skills (including through the use of AI), and obtaining public records. Students must enroll concurrently in the 4-credit clinic and the 3-credit seminar. Credits count toward New York’s pro bono requirement. There are no prerequisites or corequisites, but having taken courses that cover administrative or environmental law would certainly be helpful.

• Type: Clinic

This course is an introduction to U.S. energy law. The first portion of the course introduces the nation’s sources of energy: coal, oil, biofuels, natural gas, hydropower, nuclear, wind, solar, geothermal energy, and energy efficiency. In doing so, it explores the physical, market, and legal structures within which these energy sources are extracted, transported, and converted into energy. The second portion of the course turns to the two major sectors of our energy economy — electricity and transportation — and the full range of federal and state regulation of each sector. The third portion of the course explores case studies of hot topics in energy law and policy that highlight the complex transitions taking place in the energy system. These topics may include electric grid modernization, electric vehicles, the role of energy innovation in addressing climate change, and the continued role of nuclear energy. In addition to traditional textbook reading and class discussion, the course may include industry, government, and nonprofit guest speaker presentations.

• Type: Upper Class

The Clinic, which was founded in 1983, teaches students to be effective advocates for the National Wildlife Federation, other environmental justice and conservation organizations, and local governments. The course has both a clinical and a classroom component. For clinical work, students participate in administrative and civil litigation, comment on proposed rules and permits, submit public records requests, and draft legislation. Topics include environmental justice, climate change, natural resources & wildlife management, pollution control, and utility regulation. In the classroom, the focus is on representing organizations, practicing in an administrative law framework, effective client counseling, improving research skills (including through the use of AI), and obtaining public records. Students must enroll concurrently in the 4-credit clinic and the 3-credit seminar. Credits count toward New York’s pro bono requirement. There are no prerequisites or corequisites, but having taken courses that cover administrative or environmental law would certainly be helpful.

• Type: Clinic

The Clinic, which was founded in 1983, teaches students to be effective advocates for the National Wildlife Federation, other environmental justice and conservation organizations, and local governments. The course has both a clinical and a classroom component. For clinical work, students participate in administrative and civil litigation, comment on proposed rules and permits, submit public records requests, and draft legislation. Topics include environmental justice, climate change, natural resources & wildlife management, pollution control, and utility regulation. In the classroom, the focus is on representing organizations, practicing in an administrative law framework, effective client counseling, improving research skills (including through the use of AI), and obtaining public records. Students must enroll concurrently in the 4-credit clinic and the 3-credit seminar. Credits count toward New York’s pro bono requirement. There are no prerequisites or corequisites, but having taken courses that cover administrative or environmental law would certainly be helpful.

• Type: Clinic

Water Wars: Law and Advocacy to Save the Great Lakes
The University of Michigan sits in the midst of the most abundant source of surface fresh water in the world and some of the most fascinating legal and policy disputes that will determine its future. The Great Lakes contain 20% of the surface fresh water of the entire planet, and 90% of that of the United States. They not only serve as sources of drinking water and recreation for 40 million people, but also as the economic engine for the region.
Today, the lakes have reached a tipping point. Centuries of use (and abuse) and the increased demand for water from an increasingly thirsty world have created immense and potentially irreversible ecological changes and historic legal conflicts and policy opportunities to accompany them.
In this class, we will learn and experience national, state, and international natural resource law and advocacy through the lens of this unique region. The public trust doctrine, water law, the Clean Water Act and other environmental laws, and even maritime law are all being simultaneously litigated and rewritten in this period of seismic shifts in Great Lakes policy. The class will cover these and other topics through lectures by and discussions with the leaders in the Great Lakes region who right now are remaking Great Lakes law and policy.

• Type: Upper Class

This course is an introduction to U.S. energy law. The first portion of the course introduces the nation’s sources of energy: coal, oil, biofuels, natural gas, hydropower, nuclear, wind, solar, geothermal energy, and energy efficiency. In doing so, it explores the physical, market, and legal structures within which these energy sources are extracted, transported, and converted into energy. The second portion of the course turns to the two major sectors of our energy economy — electricity and transportation — and the full range of federal and state regulation of each sector. The third portion of the course explores case studies of hot topics in energy law and policy that highlight the complex transitions taking place in the energy system. These topics may include electric grid modernization, electric vehicles, the role of energy innovation in addressing climate change, and the continued role of nuclear energy. In addition to traditional textbook reading and class discussion, the course may include industry, government, and nonprofit guest speaker presentations.

• Type: Upper Class

Every day with regard to the environment, decisions are made and actions are taken that disproportionately impact people of color, indigenous peoples, and the poor. Can we ever achieve environmental justice through the law?
This course examines whether and how our legal system can address environmental racism and other forms of environmental injustice. After covering the history of the environmental justice movement as both a social and legal phenomenon, we will explore and assess the legal frameworks available to address environmental injustice. With regard to legal frameworks, we will spend most of our time on tort, civil rights, environmental-administrative, and land use & zoning. The environmental administrative framework will include pollution control laws (e.g. Clean Air Act, Clean Water Act), utility rate-setting, management of natural resources & public lands, and climate change. Apart from traditional legal materials, we will also read social science & public health scholarship, newspaper articles, history, philosophy, and literature.

• Type: Seminar

This course provides an introduction to the laws and regulations we use to address environmental harms. It focuses on the major pollution control statutes, particularly the Clean Air Act, Clean Water Act, Resource Conservation and Recovery Act, Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation and Recovery Act, and Toxic Substances Control Act. We will also examine the role of the courts in interpreting these statutes as well as the underlying scientific, economic, and policy rationales for environmental protection. Recurring themes will include the balance of federal and state authority, the influence of interest groups (both industry and environmental organizations) on environmental policy, and the disparate impact of pollution on vulnerable populations. The course will also cover recent developments in administrative and constitutional law that have significant implications for environmental regulation, such as the major questions and non-delegation doctrines.

• Type: Upper Class

The Clinic, which was founded in 1983, teaches students to be effective advocates for the National Wildlife Federation, other environmental justice and conservation organizations, and local governments. The course has both a clinical and a classroom component. For clinical work, students participate in administrative and civil litigation, comment on proposed rules and permits, submit public records requests, and draft legislation. Topics include environmental justice, climate change, natural resources & wildlife management, pollution control, and utility regulation. In the classroom, the focus is on representing organizations, practicing in an administrative law framework, effective client counseling, improving research skills (including through the use of AI), and obtaining public records. Students must enroll concurrently in the 4-credit clinic and the 3-credit seminar. Credits count toward New York’s pro bono requirement. There are no prerequisites or corequisites, but having taken courses that cover administrative or environmental law would certainly be helpful.

• Type: Clinic

The Clinic, which was founded in 1983, teaches students to be effective advocates for the National Wildlife Federation, other environmental justice and conservation organizations, and local governments. The course has both a clinical and a classroom component. For clinical work, students participate in administrative and civil litigation, comment on proposed rules and permits, submit public records requests, and draft legislation. Topics include environmental justice, climate change, natural resources & wildlife management, pollution control, and utility regulation. In the classroom, the focus is on representing organizations, practicing in an administrative law framework, effective client counseling, improving research skills (including through the use of AI), and obtaining public records. Students must enroll concurrently in the 4-credit clinic and the 3-credit seminar. Credits count toward New York’s pro bono requirement. There are no prerequisites or corequisites, but having taken courses that cover administrative or environmental law would certainly be helpful.

• Type: Clinic

Public Lands and Natural Resources Law studies the expansive body of federal and state constitutional provisions, statutes, rules, customs, and processes governing the ways individuals; corporations; and federal, state, and local governments interact with federal public lands, state lands, private lands, water, air, wildlife, minerals, and other natural resources. In this course, we will study: (1) the history and status of U.S. federal public lands and the past and present conflicts governing those lands; (2) the laws and regulations governing national parks, national monuments, national forests, grazing lands, energy resources, wildlife, and other natural resources; and (3) ownership interests and rights relating to public and private lands and resources. In addition, the course will help students gain an appreciation of our relationship with the natural environment from cultural, historical, and economic perspectives in addition to a legal perspective.

• Type: Upper Class

This course surveys the rapidly evolving law concerning nonhuman animals. Pressing legal questions arise concerning all types of animals, from insects to cetaceans, in contexts ranging from companion animals at home, to factory farms, to zoos and aquariums, to research facilities, to the wild. What is the legal status and standing of animals? What legal duties pertain to their treatment and to other actions that bear upon animals? What legal recognition is afforded to the ways that humans live alongside animals? In answering these questions, animal law intersects with many traditional areas such as property, tort, criminal, regulatory, constitutional, and international law. Animal law fundamentally concerns the practical application of statutory, decisional, and treaty law, and this course is thus primarily doctrinal. But animal law inevitably also raises deep theoretical and ethical questions about the nature of legal rights and interests, the construction of a political community, and the ways that the law responds or fails to respond to vulnerability, power imbalances, and biodegradation

• Type: Upper Class

This course provides an introduction to the laws and regulations we use to address environmental harms. It focuses on the major pollution control statutes, particularly the Clean Air Act, Clean Water Act, Resource Conservation and Recovery Act, Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation and Recovery Act, and Toxic Substances Control Act. We will also examine the role of the courts in interpreting these statutes as well as the underlying scientific, economic, and policy rationales for environmental protection. Recurring themes will include the balance of federal and state authority, the influence of interest groups (both industry and environmental organizations) on environmental policy, and the disparate impact of pollution on vulnerable populations. The course will also cover recent developments in administrative and constitutional law that have significant implications for environmental regulation, such as the major questions and non-delegation doctrines.

• Type: Upper Class

The Clinic, which was founded in 1983, teaches students to be effective advocates for the National Wildlife Federation, other environmental justice and conservation organizations, and local governments. The course has both a clinical and a classroom component. For clinical work, students participate in administrative and civil litigation, comment on proposed rules and permits, submit public records requests, and draft legislation. Topics include environmental justice, climate change, natural resources & wildlife management, pollution control, and utility regulation. In the classroom, the focus is on representing organizations, practicing in an administrative law framework, effective client counseling, improving research skills (including through the use of AI), and obtaining public records. Students must enroll concurrently in the 4-credit clinic and the 3-credit seminar. Credits count toward New York’s pro bono requirement. There are no prerequisites or corequisites, but having taken courses that cover administrative or environmental law would certainly be helpful.

• Type: Clinic

The Clinic, which was founded in 1983, teaches students to be effective advocates for the National Wildlife Federation, other environmental justice and conservation organizations, and local governments. The course has both a clinical and a classroom component. For clinical work, students participate in administrative and civil litigation, comment on proposed rules and permits, submit public records requests, and draft legislation. Topics include environmental justice, climate change, natural resources & wildlife management, pollution control, and utility regulation. In the classroom, the focus is on representing organizations, practicing in an administrative law framework, effective client counseling, improving research skills (including through the use of AI), and obtaining public records. Students must enroll concurrently in the 4-credit clinic and the 3-credit seminar. Credits count toward New York’s pro bono requirement. There are no prerequisites or corequisites, but having taken courses that cover administrative or environmental law would certainly be helpful.

• Type: Clinic

This seminar will explore the conceptual and practical ties between ownership and stewardship. Blackstone famously described ownership as “that sole and despotic dominion which one man claims and exercises over the external things of the world.” But many intellectual traditions regard the human relationship with the natural world as one of interdependence and community, not dominion. The course will start with some classic readings in environmental ethics, focusing especially on those that emphasize the obligations of humans within an ecological community. We will then examine the law of property, particularly the common law of real property though statutory law and personal property will also be considered. Across a range of concrete legal contexts, property rights operate to shield owners from obligations to the rest of the world. But there are also ways that the law of property functions to assign responsibilities to owners and to manage resources. This seminar will examine the tensions and also the harmonies between legal ownership and responsibilities toward the natural world. Students will write a seminar paper on a particular doctrinal issue, including potential legal reforms.

• Type: Seminar

Water Wars: Law and Advocacy to Save the Great Lakes
The University of Michigan sits in the midst of the most abundant source of surface fresh water in the world and some of the most fascinating legal and policy disputes that will determine its future. The Great Lakes contain 20% of the surface fresh water of the entire planet, and 90% of that of the United States. They not only serve as sources of drinking water and recreation for 40 million people, but also as the economic engine for the region.
Today, the lakes have reached a tipping point. Centuries of use (and abuse) and the increased demand for water from an increasingly thirsty world have created immense and potentially irreversible ecological changes and historic legal conflicts and policy opportunities to accompany them.
In this class, we will learn and experience national, state, and international natural resource law and advocacy through the lens of this unique region. The public trust doctrine, water law, the Clean Water Act and other environmental laws, and even maritime law are all being simultaneously litigated and rewritten in this period of seismic shifts in Great Lakes policy. The class will cover these and other topics through lectures by and discussions with the leaders in the Great Lakes region who right now are remaking Great Lakes law and policy.

• Type: Upper Class

The Clinic, which was founded in 1983, teaches students to be effective advocates for the National Wildlife Federation, other environmental justice and conservation organizations, and local governments. The course has both a clinical and a classroom component. For clinical work, students participate in administrative and civil litigation, comment on proposed rules and permits, submit public records requests, and draft legislation. Topics include environmental justice, climate change, natural resources & wildlife management, pollution control, and utility regulation. In the classroom, the focus is on representing organizations, practicing in an administrative law framework, effective client counseling, improving research skills (including through the use of AI), and obtaining public records. Students must enroll concurrently in the 4-credit clinic and the 3-credit seminar. Credits count toward New York’s pro bono requirement. There are no prerequisites or corequisites, but having taken courses that cover administrative or environmental law would certainly be helpful.

• Type: Clinic

Every day with regard to the environment, decisions are made and actions are taken that disproportionately impact people of color, indigenous peoples, and the poor. Can we ever achieve environmental justice through the law?
This course examines whether and how our legal system can address environmental racism and other forms of environmental injustice. After covering the history of the environmental justice movement as both a social and legal phenomenon, we will explore and assess the legal frameworks available to address environmental injustice. With regard to legal frameworks, we will spend most of our time on tort, civil rights, environmental-administrative, and land use & zoning. The environmental administrative framework will include pollution control laws (e.g. Clean Air Act, Clean Water Act), utility rate-setting, management of natural resources & public lands, and climate change. Apart from traditional legal materials, we will also read social science & public health scholarship, newspaper articles, history, philosophy, and literature.

• Type: Seminar

The Clinic, which was founded in 1983, teaches students to be effective advocates for the National Wildlife Federation, other environmental justice and conservation organizations, and local governments. The course has both a clinical and a classroom component. For clinical work, students participate in administrative and civil litigation, comment on proposed rules and permits, submit public records requests, and draft legislation. Topics include environmental justice, climate change, natural resources & wildlife management, pollution control, and utility regulation. In the classroom, the focus is on representing organizations, practicing in an administrative law framework, effective client counseling, improving research skills (including through the use of AI), and obtaining public records. Students must enroll concurrently in the 4-credit clinic and the 3-credit seminar. Credits count toward New York’s pro bono requirement. There are no prerequisites or corequisites, but having taken courses that cover administrative or environmental law would certainly be helpful.

• Type: Clinic

Water Wars: Law and Advocacy to Save the Great Lakes
The University of Michigan sits in the midst of the most abundant source of surface fresh water in the world and some of the most fascinating legal and policy disputes that will determine its future. The Great Lakes contain 20% of the surface fresh water of the entire planet, and 90% of that of the United States. They not only serve as sources of drinking water and recreation for 40 million people, but also as the economic engine for the region.
Today, the lakes have reached a tipping point. Centuries of use (and abuse) and the increased demand for water from an increasingly thirsty world have created immense and potentially irreversible ecological changes and historic legal conflicts and policy opportunities to accompany them.
In this class, we will learn and experience national, state, and international natural resource law and advocacy through the lens of this unique region. The public trust doctrine, water law, the Clean Water Act and other environmental laws, and even maritime law are all being simultaneously litigated and rewritten in this period of seismic shifts in Great Lakes policy. The class will cover these and other topics through lectures by and discussions with the leaders in the Great Lakes region who right now are remaking Great Lakes law and policy.

• Type: Upper Class