AOI: Environmental and Energy Law
18 results
In Practice Summer 2024
Alan Alexander, ’11: Building a Lower-Carbon Energy Sector
Alan Alexander’s work on energy transition projects—including those focused on producing more-sustainable fuel for airplanes—involves collaborating with investors and clients in the energy sector to upgrade existing plants and invest in the research and development of renewable fuels and other low-carbon energy sources.
@UMICHLAW Spring/Summer 2023
Forty Years of Protecting the Great Lakes Watershed and Training Environmental Lawyers
Forty years after its introduction, what is now known as the Environmental Law and Sustainability Clinic continues to provide invaluable hands-on learning experience for students, using litigation and other means of advocacy to advance environmental priorities in the Great Lakes region and beyond.
Class Note
Russell Smith, ’86: Ensuring There Are Plenty of Fish in the Sea
Russell Smith’s clients are slimy. Really. They number in the billions, don’t communicate, and move constantly. He willingly allows many to get the death penalty. Smith, ’86, is deputy assistant secretary for international fisheries at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).
In Memoriam Spring 2014
Professor Joseph Sax
Joseph Sax, a pioneer of environmental law, died March 9, 2014, at the age of 78. He was a professor of law at Michigan from 1966 to 1986. Although he later joined the faculty at the University of California, Berkeley, he said of Michigan, “It is the place where I grew and prospered professionally, and it shall always be my intellectual home.”
Class Note
Jesse Medlong, ’13: Addressing Climate Change across Borders and Sectors
It was only as he sat in Paris at the 2015 United Nations Climate Change Conference of Parties that Jesse Medlong realized he might be an environmental lawyer.
In Practice
Law at the Bottom of the Earth
Ted Kill, ’07, covered a lot of ground between Michigan Law and his arrival in Antarctica, when he travelled to the continent as part of an interagency federal government inspection team. His journey to the bottom of the earth started with a clerkship at the International Court of Justice that he secured through Michigan Law, which served as a bridge to joining the State Department’s Office of the Legal Adviser.
@UMICHLAW
Environmental Law and Policy Program Hosts National Climate Advisor
“One out of three Americans [have felt the effects of climate change] in the last couple of months, between the wildfires and hurricanes and flooding, and the storms and droughts and heatwaves. We’re in a new era when we can see it and taste it and feel it for ourselves.”
@UMICHLAW
@UMICHLAW: Fall 2020
John Petoskey, ’20, appointed to Michigan Advisory Council on Environmental Justice | Professor Ellen Katz receives 2020 L. Hart Wright Award for Excellence in Teaching | Professor of Law Evan Caminker co-counsels successful appellate case | and more...
Cover Story
A Seat at the Table: Legal Careers in the Food Industry
From Texas Roadhouse to Massachusetts dairy, we profile alumni working across the food industry's varied legal landscape. This includes a food lawyer who, “has participated in the development of virtually every law and regulation affecting the food industry in the last four decades,” an environmental lawyer advocating for sustainable meat production, a food writer, and a fast-food franchise owner.
Cover Story
The Legal Climate of Climate Change: Policy
“The first thing the professor told us was that he wasn’t trying to ban fossil fuels and he wasn’t trying to set goals for the next decade. He said that he just wanted to make sure we have policies in place now so that in 100 years, we’re much better off than we otherwise would be. And I said, ‘Well, with that line of thinking, we can actually work together.’”