Environmental Law & Policy Clinic
The Environmental Law and Policy Clinic (ELPC) provides students opportunities to engage with critical environmental and climate change issues. By providing legal assistance in policy and advocacy efforts, the ELPC supports legislators, government agencies, nonprofits, regional environmental and community organizations, and citizens groups. Through this hands-on experience, students gain the skills needed to excel in the rapidly changing field of environmental law and are empowered to enhance the quality of life in our communities.
Through drafting of comment letters, briefings, and whitepapers, advising legislators, and preparing notice letters, complaints, and pleading for court, as well as materials for administrative proceedings, students get into the weeds of creating, implementing, and challenging laws. Students interact with policy-makers, environmental lawyers, engineers, scientists, and other experts on environmental law, land use, permitting, policymaking, regulatory compliance, environmental justice and citizen enforcement matters.
Student casework in the ELPC has included:
- Collaborating with a nonprofit community organization on a variety of litigation matters that seek to protect, preserve, and steward land and water resources in Southeastern Massachusetts,
- Interpreting inter-governmental agreements concerning proposed dam removal actions and applicable laws,
- Providing support for a ten-citizen group’s administrative appeal of a state wetlands permit for a project within an environmental justice community,
- Establishing climate resilience tools and a regulatory policy analysis for a state agency,
- Analyzing proposed pollinator and pesticide bills and associated policy implications for a state senator,
- Supporting municipalities in climate adaptation policies, and organizing data, participating in meetings, and developing strategies related to proposed environmental legislation in collaboration with regional environmental organizations
The case work in the ELPC requires a minimum of 13 hours per week outside of class and supervision meetings. Depending on the needs of clients, students may have client meetings, events, or work in the evenings and on weekends.
Students also participate in a 2-credit weekly seminar covering substantive environmental and energy law and lawyering skills. Students learn from and network with attorneys from state and federal agencies, advocacy organizations, lobbying firms, the state legislature, and private practice.
The ELCP prepares students for leadership roles in environmental and energy law, linking them with alumni mentors, and hosting career-oriented programming in collaboration with the Office of Professional and Career Development and the Environmental Law Society Through this experience, students build their network in the Boston-area and learn of potential career paths in this field.
A student must have successfully completed or be concurrently enrolled in Evidence in order to qualify for certification under Supreme Judicial Court's Student Practice Rule 3:03. We recommend that students take an environmental law course and/or administrative law prior to applying for the ELPC.
If you have any questions, please contact Visiting Assistant Clinical Professor Robert Cox ([email protected]) and Practitioner-in-Residence Chelsea Kendall ([email protected]).