Environmental Law Center Blog

Dear Friends: You’ll find the latest annual report from the Widener Environmental Law Center at:  http://blogs.law.widener.edu/envirolawcenter/files/2011/05/2011_12-Annual-Report-newsletter-final.pdf.

A few highlights. We formed the Center under the motto “Law for Sustainability” to harness the expertise of the seven full-time environmental law faculty on Widener’s Harrisburg and Delaware campuses. Widener Law has one of the hardiest and longest-standing environmental law programs on the planet. We offer a dozen environmental courses, certificates and an LL.M in Environmental Law (concentration), a joint Masters degree in Marine Policy, and one of world’s original environmental clinical programs. Every year, we host conferences, debates, field trips, a Distinguished Speaker Series, and much more. We have hundreds of environmental law alumni, who populate courtrooms, boardrooms and legislative halls throughout the country, providing legal services to public, private and non-governmental sectors. In recognition of its world-class environmental program, Widener was recently awarded the “Magna Cum Laude” distinction from National Jurist magazine as one of the ‘greenest’ law schools in the country.

The Center’s faculty has a national and international reputation for teaching, scholarship and service on the critical environmental policy questions of the 21st century, including: participation in the recent United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development; Rio+20; involvement in a variety of environmental cases in Delaware and Pennsylvania courts as well as the U.S. Supreme Court; and authorship of a broad range of influential scholarship. Recent books include those by the center’s co-directors, John Dernbach (Acting as if Tomorrow Matters: Accelerating the Transition to Sustainability), and Jim May (Contemporary Principles in Constitutional Environmental Law), and those by Jean Macchiaroli Eggen (TOXIC TORTS IN A NUTSHELL (4^th ed.)), David Hodas (Climate Change: Mitigation and Adaptation), Patrick Kelly and Erin Daly (chapters in Routledge Handbook of International Environmental Law,  and Andy Strauss (chapter in Adjudicating Climate Change). And the reputation of the Widener Environmental and Natural Resources Law Clinic continues to grow under the directorship of Ken Kristl.

Here is a snapshot of our 2011-12 activities:

· Published 2 books, 7 chapters, and 27 articles, and 1 book review, dozens of blog entries, and filed 1 law professor amicus brief before the U.S. Supreme Court.

· Increased its environmental titles to 14 books, 55 chapters, 366 articles and essays, and 9 amicus briefs.

· Added 7,770 new downloads of environmental titles, including 3,500 for SSRN and 4,200 for BePress.

· Increased its overall SSRN and BePress downloads on environmental titles by 50 percent, to 35,911, including 19,072 for SSRN and 16,839 for BePress.

· Made 28 professional presentations near and far, including in Rio and Budapest.

· Served in 10 professional organizations.

· Granted 5 Certificates in Environmental Law.

· Hosted 3 distinguished speakers, as part of our “Distinguished Environmental Law Speaker Series.”

· Supervised 34 law students in the Widener Environmental and Natural Resources Law Clinic, who provided 3,811 hours of pro bono legal services to more than 33 different clients.

· Sponsored 4 field trips, including to the Heinz National Wildlife Center, the U.S. Supreme Court, and various professional conferences.

· Assisted students to attend numerous American Law Institute/American Bar Association and Pennsylvania Bar Institute conferences for little or no tuition.

You can read more about the entire program at: http://blogs.law.widener.edu/envirolawcenter/

Thanks for reading, and for your support. All best,

Jim & John