Summer 2008 Brown Bag Lecture Series
Each summer, the Environmental Law Center at Vermont Law School presents a series of lectures, open to the public, featuring Vermont Law School faculty, students, and other leaders in environmental systems, environmental protection, and environmental law.
Vermont Law School’s Summer Session faculty includes national and international leaders from the fields of law, policy, and science. These experts, and other noted authorities, provide insights on various topics in environmental law during brown bag lunches in the Chase Community Center at Vermont Law School. Links to audio files of these lectures, as well as brief introductions to each topic, will be provided here.
The Lecturers, 2008 . . .
Robert Anderson is a senior trial attorney in the Environmental Crimes Section of the U.S. Department of Justice. He has prosecuted violations of federal environmental laws in cases involving the smuggling of live wildlife and parts and corporate taking of protected species.
Mary Jane Angelo is an associate professor of law at the University of Florida’s Levin College of Law. She has
been a senior attorney for the U.S. EPA and for the St. Johns River Water Management District in Florida.
David Driesen is VLS’s 2008 Distinguished Environmental Summer Scholar. He is a professor of law at Syracuse University College of Law, where he teaches climate change and international environmental law.
Stephen Dycus has been a professor of law at VLS since 1976. He is an internationally recognized authority on national security and the law and water rights issues. He is the lead author of National Security Law (the
field’s leading casebook).
Joseph Guth is the legal director of the Science and Environmental Health Network, where he works on the
transformation of the law so that it will promote preservation of the earth rather than accepting environmental destruction as a byproduct of economic growth.
Randy Hill is the deputy director of the Office of Civil Enforcement at EPA, where he oversees EPA’s civil
enforcement of the major environmental statutes. He has served as the agency’s national legal expert for many Clean Water Act issues.
Jessica Jay ’97 is a founding partner of Conservation Law, P.C. Her practice involves preserving working landscapes and environmentally significant properties in the Rocky Mountain West.
Jingjing Liu is the associate director of VLS’s Partnership for Environmental Law in China. She has worked at the Natural Resources Defense Council in San Francisco, where she conducted extensive research on Chinese environmental and energy issues.
David Mears ’91 is the director of the Environmental and Natural Resources Law Clinic at VLS. He has served
as the senior assistant attorney general in the Ecology Division of the Washington Office of the Attorney General.
Patrick Parenteau is the senior counsel and former director of the Environmental Law Clinic at VLS. He has
served commissioner of the Vermont Department of Environmental Conservation, and vice president for
conservation at the National Wildlife Federation.
Jacob Park is an assistant professor of business strategy and sustainability at Green Mountain College. His most recent book is Crisis of Global Environmental Governance: Towards a New Political Economy of
Sustainability (2008 Routledge).
Asher Price, the environmental beat reporter for the Austin American-Statesman, has covered many
stories with a green bent, from efforts by the state to sell off public land to light pollution outshining West Texas stars. He grew up in New York City.
Amy Quinton, the environmental reporter at New Hampshire Public Radio, has more than 15 years experience
as a journalist. She has received numerous awards, including the national Sigma Delta Chi Award presented
by the Society of Professional Journalists.
Jack Tuholske is a private practitioner in Missoula and an adjunct professor at the University of Montana Law
School. He has litigated a wide range of natural resource issues throughout the West.
Tseming Yang is a professor of law and director of VLS’s Partnership for Environmental Law in China. He
has worked on international environmental law, global climate change, and environmental justice issues at the U.S. Department of Justice. He was a Fulbright Senior Scholar at Tsinghua University Law School in Beijing.
The Lecturers, 2007 . . .
Tracy Bach is the associate project director and senior research fellow of the Climate Legacy Initiative, a project of VLS and the University of Iowa’s Center for Human Rights and Center for Global and Environmental Research.
Dina Cappiello is an award-winning environment writer for the Houston Chronicle. She has reported on issues from CERCLA to energy policy to the environmental toll of the 2005 hurricanes.
Warren Cornwall covers the environment for the Seattle Times. He has written about the potential impacts of global warming in the Northwest, cleanup of polluted nuclear weapons factories, and endangered salmon and orcas.
Richard Frank is the executive director of the California Center for Environmental Law and Policy at Boalt Hall School of Law at the University of California, Berkeley.
Randy Hill is the deputy director of the Office of Civil Enforcement at EPA, where he oversees civil enforcement of the major environmental statutes. He has served as the agency’s national legal expert for many Clean Water Act issues.
Oliver Houck is a professor of law at Tulane University Law School. An expert on wildlife and pollution control issues, he is the 2006 recipient of the ABA’s Award for Distinguished Achievement in Environmental Law and Policy.
Wm. Robert Irvin is the senior vice president for conservation programs at Defenders of Wildlife, where he is in charge of Defenders’ conservation policy, field conservation, international conservation, and litigation programs.
Martha Judy is an associate professor at VLS, where she has directed the Environmental Semester in Washington program and the Environmental Law Clinic. She has worked as a wildlife biologist.
Jerry Magee MSEL ’09 is the Oregon-Washington Environmental Protection Specialist for the Bureau of Land Management. He co-authored the Tiered Ecosystem Assessment commentary published in the December 2006 issue of Environmental Practice.
Rosalind Renfrew works in the Conservation Biology Department at the Vermont Institute of Natural Science. Her work includes research on the wintering ecology of migrant grassland birds and directing the Vermont Breeding Bird Atlas.
Armin Rosencranz is a visiting professor of environmental policy at the Graduate School of Public Policy at the University of Maryland. He is co-editor of Climate Change Science and Policy (2007).
Yvonne Scannell is an associate professor of law at Trinity College, Dublin. She teaches Irish and European environmental law and is one of Ireland’s leading environmental lawyers.
Christopher Serkin is an assistant professor of law at Brooklyn Law School. His scholarship focuses on property, land use and local government. His latest article, “Local Property Law,” is forthcoming in the Columbia Law Review.
Jack Tuholske is a private practitioner in Missoula and an adjunct professor at the University of Montana Law School. He has litigated a wide range of natural resource cases throughout the West.
LaJuana Wilcher is a partner at English, Lucas, Priest & Owsley. She was secretary of Kentucky’s Environmental and Public Protection Cabinet from 2003 – 2006.
Steven Wise is president of the Center for the Expansion of Fundamental Rights, Inc. and has been a practicing animal rights attorney for 25 years. His most recent book is Though the Heavens May Fall – The Landmark Trial That Led to the End of Human Slavery.
