Environmental challenges are rarely simple. From climate change to local conservation, the challenges of sustainability and long-term environmental health raise complex scientific, ethical, economic and political questions that defy easy answers.
PLACE at UVA Law School empowers students to confront these questions so they can build the practical skills, analytic tools and hands-on experience needed to effect change as environmental leaders in government, business and the not-for-profit sector.
The program combines outstanding legal teaching with opportunities for interdisciplinary study, clinical experience, skills training and scholarly inquiry. Interacting with faculty who research and shape the law at the local, regional and global levels, students at the Law School experience environmental law firsthand as it is practiced today, and study how it can better meet the next generation of challenges. With a wide range of courses, conferences, student groups and opportunities for independent study, students at the Law School are part of a vibrant intellectual community that crosses boundaries of academic disciplines and between practice and scholarship.
The Setting
Nestled in the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains, Charlottesville and surrounding Albemarle County provide a beautiful and fruitful setting for the study of land use and environmental issues. The area faces regional growth concerns, including the need to protect biodiversity and open space, provide affordable housing, and respond to climate change. These sometimes conflicting policy demands test relationships among urban, suburban and rural communities, all at a scale that makes the issues realistically accessible to student investigators. The proximity of the Shenandoah National Park, the Jefferson National Forest and the Chesapeake Bay (the Law School is in the bay watershed) provides further opportunity to study problems in regional growth, natural resource policy and watershed management.
UVA Law professor Michael Livermore tells admitted students about the Law School’s environmental law offerings. This talk was part of the 2017 Admitted Students Open House.
It is commonly assumed that local land use regulations—and especially single-family and other restrictive zoning classifications—limit housing supply...
In 2021, the U.S. Supreme Court decided PennEast Pipeline Co. v. New Jersey. The case is often associated with a theory of private delegation--that is...
It is commonly assumed that local land use regulations—and especially single-family and other restrictive zoning classifications—limit housing supply...
In 2021, the U.S. Supreme Court decided PennEast Pipeline Co. v. New Jersey. The case is often associated with a theory of private delegation--that is...
This chapter first explains how the federal Clean Water Act is linked with the implementation of other major environmental laws in the United States...
This Article documents and seeks to explain a significant shift in how we construct natural gas pipelines in the United States. Natural gas pipelines...
Contributions to solving the globe’s environmental crisis are properly expected to come from every country to a greater or lesser degree depending on...
In the United States the primary tool to value greenhouse gas emissions reductions in cost-benefit analysis is the social cost of carbon (SCC), which...
Housing costs in major coastal metropolitan areas nationwide have skyrocketed, impacting people, the economy, and the environment. Land-use regulation...
California has endured devastating fire seasons over the past few years, with billions of dollars of damages, thousands of homes lost, and dozens dead...
Inadequate housing supply in California’s most expensive metro areas drives a statewide housing crisis that challenges climate policy implementation...
The United States has long been an urban country, but it is fast becoming a metropolitan one. Population and economic activity are now concentrated in...
The ‘social cost of carbon’ is an economic concept that represents – in monetary net present value terms – the damages caused by the emission of a ton...
This essay, prepared for a symposium hosted by the William & Mary Environmental Law and Policy Review and the Virginia Coastal Policy Clinic, focuses...
This Essay examines and explains the positions of the principal interest groups over the past four decades with respect to the two central questions...
This paper explicates the four building blocks underlying emission standard guidelines in the U.S. EPA's proposed clean power plan for reducing carbon...
PLACE at UVA includes more than 15 elective courses and seminars, including several interdisciplinary classes co-taught by law professors and faculty in urban planning, environmental sciences and the humanities. Students also undertake independent research projects on subjects of their choosing. Recent topics have included climate change nuisance claims, land conservation in the Chesapeake Bay watershed, and the governance of the National Trails System.
The following is a list of courses offered during 2022-25. Numbers in parentheses indicate which academic year(s) the courses were offered, i.e., 2022-23 is coded (23), 2023-24 is coded (24) and 2024-25 is coded (25). (SC) stands for short course and (YR) stands for yearlong.
Climate and Debt (24) Climate Change Law (23) Climate Law and Climate Ethics (24) Conservation Planning and Law (23,24,25) Contemporary Housing Policy Debates (25) Energy and Environmental Products Trading and Commodities Regulation (SC) (23) Energy Regulation and Policy (23,24) Environmental Law (23,24,25) Historic Preservation Law (23) Housing Law and Poverty Seminar (23,24,25) International Environmental Law (23) Land Use Law (23,25) Law of Public-Private Partnerships (23,24,25) Monument Litigation (SC) (25) Natural Resources Law and Policy (23,25) Property, the Police Power and Emergencies (23,24,25) Public Utility Regulation Seminar (23,25) Rise of ESG in Corporate Law and Governance (SC) (23) State and Local Government Law (24) Theory and Practice of Biodiversity Conservation (23,25) Urban Law and Policy (23,24) Wine and the Law (23)
Students may receive Law School credit for related graduate courses offered by other departments and schools in the University, including classes on topics such as preservation planning, land use policy, ecology, climatology and business-government relations. Students can obtain joint degrees in law and land use planning, business or environmental sciences.
University of Virginia School of Law professor Cale Jaffe received a UVA Excellence in Public Service award for, among other accomplishments, his efforts to preserve a historic Black schoolhouse in Cumberland County, Virginia.
The practice of investing in funds and companies that pay attention to environmental, social and corporate governance issues could be at a turning point, say UVA Law professors Quinn Curtis and Paul G. Mahoney.
PLACE at UVA includes more than 15 elective courses and seminars, including several interdisciplinary classes co-taught by law professors and faculty in urban planning, environmental sciences and the humanities. Students also undertake independent research projects on subjects of their choosing. Recent topics have included climate change nuisance claims, land conservation in the Chesapeake Bay watershed, and the governance of the National Trails System.
The following is a list of courses offered during 2022-25. Numbers in parentheses indicate which academic year(s) the courses were offered, i.e., 2022-23 is coded (23), 2023-24 is coded (24) and 2024-25 is coded (25). (SC) stands for short course and (YR) stands for yearlong.
Climate and Debt (24) Climate Change Law (23) Climate Law and Climate Ethics (24) Conservation Planning and Law (23,24,25) Contemporary Housing Policy Debates (25) Energy and Environmental Products Trading and Commodities Regulation (SC) (23) Energy Regulation and Policy (23,24) Environmental Law (23,24,25) Historic Preservation Law (23) Housing Law and Poverty Seminar (23,24,25) International Environmental Law (23) Land Use Law (23,25) Law of Public-Private Partnerships (23,24,25) Monument Litigation (SC) (25) Natural Resources Law and Policy (23,25) Property, the Police Power and Emergencies (23,24,25) Public Utility Regulation Seminar (23,25) Rise of ESG in Corporate Law and Governance (SC) (23) State and Local Government Law (24) Theory and Practice of Biodiversity Conservation (23,25) Urban Law and Policy (23,24) Wine and the Law (23)
Students may receive Law School credit for related graduate courses offered by other departments and schools in the University, including classes on topics such as preservation planning, land use policy, ecology, climatology and business-government relations. Students can obtain joint degrees in law and land use planning, business or environmental sciences.
University of Virginia School of Law professor Cale Jaffe received a UVA Excellence in Public Service award for, among other accomplishments, his efforts to preserve a historic Black schoolhouse in Cumberland County, Virginia.
The practice of investing in funds and companies that pay attention to environmental, social and corporate governance issues could be at a turning point, say UVA Law professors Quinn Curtis and Paul G. Mahoney.
The Law School's support for learning opportunities in environmental and land use law goes deeper than course offerings.
PLACE Projects
With funds provided in part by the Henry L. & Grace Doherty Charitable Foundation, PLACE will sponsor teaching, discourse, research and community engagement on questions of environmental law and social justice as they relate to diverse communities and places. Areas of focus for these special projects include environmental justice; the connections between urban and rural environments; relationships among processes at local, regional and global scales; social and environmental changes affecting communities; and law’s role in defining and protecting the values of places.
Adapting to impacts and mitigating greenhouse gas emissions present critical trade-offs at the community scale, and between communities and broader scales. A central concern of PLACE is the laws, policies and other tools that are needed to help societies make these decisions in a fair and rational way.
Symposia
Over the past dozen years, the Law School has sponsored national conferences on growth management, nature conservation, environmental contracting, revitalization of contaminated land, transboundary watershed management and climate change. These symposia attracted leading practitioners and scholars and top government officials. Law students help plan these conferences and edit and publish the papers that emerge from them.
Virginia Environmental Law Journal
Founded in 1979 and managed and edited by students, the journal is a leader in environmental legal scholarship. Website
Virginia Environmental Law Forum
This popular and active student group hosts speakers and networking events, and sponsors law students who participate in environmental moot court and negotiation competitions. The forum, in cooperation with the Law School’s Mortimer Caplin Public Service Center, also provides pro bono opportunities to students interested in environmental law. Students may choose from a range of environmental pro bono projects on behalf of public interest and governmental clients that have requested assistance. Forum members also have opportunities to network with environmental law employers and professionals. Website
Public Service
The Law School has made a strong financial commitment to students choosing to pursue public interest careers. The school’s Mortimer Caplin Public Service Center helps students interested in environmental law find summer internships and postgraduate employment. Public Service Center
Second-year University of Virginia School of Law student Bryce Campanelli discusses how his interest in energy policy led him to pursue a J.D., and he and his classmates’ plans to raise awareness of men’s mental health through running.
David Troutt of Rutgers Law School and Thad Williamson of the University of Richmond discuss pathways to racial and economic equity, with a focus on the effects of local and regional housing, employment and anti-poverty policies. UVA Law professor Richard Schragger moderated the event, hosted by PLACE: The Program in Law, Communities and the Environment. The event was the third in the program’s “PLACE and Power” series of virtual conversations exploring connections between human place-based relationships and the law and politics of environmental governance.
Lisa Robinson is a senior research scientist and the deputy director at the Center for Health at the Harvard School of Public Health. She is a leading expert in the use of cost-benefit analysis to evaluate public policy.
Lisa Heinzerling on Environmental Law and the Supreme Court
Lisa Heinzerling is an environmental law professor at Georgetown University and former Associate Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency's Office of Policy during the Obama administration.
Jessica Locke on Buddhism and Environmental Engagement
Jess Locke is an associate professor of philosophy at Loyola University, Maryland. She studies Buddhism, Western psychology, and cross-cultural philosophy.
Sabeel Rahman is a professor at Cornell Law School with substantial public policy experience, including as president of the think tank Demos and as senior counselor and then later as the acting Administrator in the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs in the Biden administration. Rahman is also the author of the book “Democracy Against Domination” amongst other works.
Holly Doremus is a professor of environmental law at Berkeley and the co-director for the Berkeley Institute for Parks, People, and Diversity. Doremus has a interdisciplinary background with a PhD in Plant Physiology from Cornell in addition to her JD.
Curtis, Gulati, and Weidemaier on Empty Green Promisess
UVA Law professors Quinn Curtis and Mitu Gulati, and UNC-Chapel Hill Law professor Mark Weidemaier are all experts in the regulation of financial markets. They discuss their new paper, "Green Bonds and Empty Promises."
Ganesh Sitaraman & Shelley Welton on Networks, Platforms, and Utilities
Vanderbilt law professor Ganesh Sitaraman and University of Pennsylvania law professor Shelley Welton are experts in regulatory policy and are co-authors of a new case book Networks, Platforms, and Utilities.
Danae Hernandez-Cortes on Environmental Economics & Justice
Danae Hernandez-Cortes is an economist and professor in the School of Sustainability at Arizona State University who studies environmental justice and the distributional consequences of environmental policy.
Paul Stephan on the Knowledge Economy and Global Politics
Paul Stephan is a comparative and international law expert at UVA Law and author of the new book, “The World Crisis and International Law: The Knowledge Economy and the Battle for the Future,” recently published by Cambridge University Press.
Alex Wang is a professor of law at UCLA, co-director of the Emmett Institute on Climate Change and the Environment, and expert on the law and politics of Chinese environmental governance.
Alex Guerrero is a philosophy professor at Rutgers who writes in moral and political philosophy. He is a leading philosophical defender of the idea of lottocracy—the practice of choosing political leaders through lottery rather than elections.
UVA Law professor Rich Schragger is a leading expert on local government, federalism, and urban policy and the author of City Power: Urban Governance in a Global Age.
Michael Greenstone on Economics and Environmental Policy
Michael Greenstone is the Milton Freedman Distinguished Service Professor in Economics and the Director of the Energy Policy Institute at the University of Chicago. He served as the Chief Economist for President Obama’s Council of Economic Advisors and has worked for decades engaged in research and policy development on environmental issues.
Gerald Torres is a professor at the Yale School of the Environment and Yale Law School and director of the Yale Center for Environmental Justice. Torres explores the connections between environmental law and social justice from a scholarly and practical perspective.
Katherine Blunt is a journalist at The Wall Street Journal and the recent author of “California Burning: The Fall of Pacific Gas and Electric and What it Means for America’s Power Grid.”
Jonathan Colmer is an assistant professor at the University of Virginia’s Department of Economics and the director of the Environmental Inequality Lab. His research interests are in environmental economics, development economics and the distributional impacts of environmental policy.
Matthew Burtner is a professor of compositions and computer technologies in the music department at the University of Virginia. Burtner’s work explores ecology and the aesthetic link between human expression and environmental systems. His latest album is “Ice Field.”
Moira O’Neill is a professor of Urban and Environmental Planning at the University of Virginia who also has a joint appointment at UVA Law. Her work covers land use, climate change, equity and resilience. A specific area of her research is land use law and its relationship to housing affordability, integration and environmental impacts in California.
Ronald Sandler, a professor of philosophy at Northeastern University, writes on environmental ethics, emerging technologies and ethical issues surrounding climate change, food and species conservation. His books include “Environmental Ethics: Theory and Practice” and “The Ethics of Species.”
Jonathan Adler on Federalism and Environmental Law
Jonathan Adler is a law professor at Case Western Reserve University who writes on environmental law, federalism and regulation. In 2020, Brookings Institution Press published Adler’s edited “Marijuana Federalism: Uncle Sam and Mary Jane.”
Frances Moore is a professor of environmental science and policy at the University of California, Davis, whose work focuses on climate economics. Recently, Moore was the lead author of a paper in Nature that examines an important set of feedbacks between politics and the climate system.
Dale Jamieson on Environmental Ethics and Democracy
Dale Jamieson is a professor of environmental studies and philosophy at New York University. His most recent book, “Discerning Experts,” was published in 2019 by the University of Chicago Press.
Kimberly Fields on Environmental Justice and the States
Kimberly Fields is an assistant professor at UVA’s Woodson Institute of African-American and African Studies. Her recent work has focused on environmental justice, race and inequality at the state level.
Elizabeth Kolbert is a writer at The New Yorker, as well as the author of several books, including "The Sixth Extinction: An Unnatural History,” for which she won a Pulitzer Prize in 2015. Her most recent book, "Under a White Sky: The Nature of the Future,” was published in 2021.
Jennifer Cole and Michael Vandenbergh on Social Psychology and Climate Change
Jennifer Cole, a postdoctoral scholar in social psychology at the Vanderbilt Climate Change Research Network, and Michael Vandenbergh, the David Daniels Allen Distinguished Chair of Law at the Vanderbilt University Law School, talk about their work examining the political polarization of climate change and COVID-19 policies.
Cara Daggett on the Science and Politics of Thermodynamics
Cara Daggett, assistant professor of political science at Virginia Tech, talks about her new book “The Birth of Energy: Fossil Fuels, Thermodynamics, and the Politics of Work.”
Nicholas Agar is a moral philosopher who is currently a Distinguished Visiting Professor at Carnegie Mellon University, Australia. His most recent book, "How to Be Human in the Digital Economy,” was published by MIT Press in 2019.
Arden Rowell on the Psychology of Environmental Law
Arden Rowell is a professor of law at the University of Illinois College of Law. Rowell’s work focuses on environmental law, human behavior and the incorporation of a multidisciplinary approach to the study of environmental law. Her new book, "The Psychology of Environmental Law,” co-written with Kenworthey Bilz, was recently published by NYU Press.
Shi-Ling Hsu is the D’Alemberte Professor of Law and associate dean for environmental programs at the Florida State University College of Law. He is also the author of the book “Capitalism and the Environment: A Proposal to Save the Environment,” which was published in December 2021 by Cambridge University Press.
Karen Bradshaw is a professor of law and the Mary Sigler Research Fellow at Arizona State University’s Sandra Day O’Connor College of Law. Bradshaw’s work examines the intersection of environmental law and property law. Her most recent book, “Wildlife as Property Owners: A New Conception of Animal Rights,” contends that property rights can be a useful tool in the protection of endangered wildlife.
Jonathan Cannon retired from UVA Law in May 2021 after more than two decades of teaching at the law school. Prior to joining UVA Law, Cannon served as general counsel to the EPA, and his 1998 memo, which has come to be known as “the Cannon memo,” was influential in opening a path for EPA to regulate greenhouse gas emissions. He is currently writing a book about the significance of “place.”
Karen McGlathery is a professor at UVA’s Department of Environmental Sciences and the director of UVA’s Environmental Resilience Institute. McGlathery’s work centers on coastal ecosystems and the discussion today covers a number of different topics related to climate change and coastal communities.
Madison Condon on Climate and Corporate Governance
Boston University School of Law professor Madison Condon has written extensively on how corporations are changing their approach to the environment in the face of climate change issues and the rise of ESG investing, which incorporates environmental, social and governance considerations into larger investment strategies.
Willis Jenkins on the Humanities and Environmental Change
Willis Jenkins, the John Allen Hollingsworth Professor of Ethics and Department Chair of the Religious Studies Department at UVA, researches climate ethics, including religion and climate change; multispecies relations, including through food ethics; post-humanist political theologies; and religious thought amidst Anthropocene stresses. At UVA, he works with the environmental humanities program, teaches for the global sustainability major and environmental thought and practice majors, and serves on the leadership team of the Environmental Resilience Institute.
Lee Buchheit and Mitu Gulati on Debt-for-Nature Deals
UVA Law professor Mitu Gulati’s work focuses on sovereign debt restructuring and contracts, and explores how to help countries in financial distress. UVA Law lecturer Lee C. Buchheit retired in 2019 after a 43-year career with Cleary Gottlieb Steen & Hamilton, where his practice focused on international and corporate transactions.
UVA environmental sciences professor Deborah Lawrence is an expert on the links between tropical deforestation and climate change. She has spent the past 25 years doing field-based research in Indonesia, Costa Rica, Mexico and Cameroon.
In her new Yale Law Journal paper, Professor Alison Gocke of the University of Virginia School of Law explores a midcentury energy overhaul in New York to show how public utility commissions can facilitate the transition to clean energy.
The federal process for reviewing proposed interstate natural gas pipelines was highly contentious several decades ago and is now more of a rubber stamp. UVA Law professor Alison Gocke looks at what changed.
Five alumni of the University of Virginia School of Law were named among Law360’s Rising Stars of 2024 for their accomplishments as attorneys in the past year.
In her new Yale Law Journal paper, Professor Alison Gocke of the University of Virginia School of Law explores a midcentury energy overhaul in New York to show how public utility commissions can facilitate the transition to clean energy.
Clinics at the University of Virginia School of Law shaped public policy, helped clients in court, appealed cases to the Supreme Court and more in the 2023-24 academic year.
University of Virginia School of Law professor Cale Jaffe received a UVA Excellence in Public Service award for, among other accomplishments, his efforts to preserve a historic Black schoolhouse in Cumberland County, Virginia.
Brenda Mallory, who chairs the White House Council on Environmental Quality, will lead an April 8 discussion co-sponsored by the University of Virginia School of Law.
On the latest “Common Law,” University of Virginia School of Law professors Quinn Curtis and Paul Mahoney discuss the future of ESG investing and whether funds focusing on environmental, social and governance issues can live up to their promises.
Second-year University of Virginia School of Law student Bryce Campanelli discusses how his interest in energy policy led him to pursue a J.D., and he and his classmates’ plans to raise awareness of men’s mental health through running.
University of Virginia School of Law professor Moira O’Neill led a yearlong California-funded investigation that culminated last week in the release of a report that requires the city to improve a zoning and permitting process that has stymied construction.
Members of the University of Virginia School of Law community have recently been singled out for excellence. Among the accolades, Professor Michael Livermore will be in Paris this school year through a fellowship dedicated to addressing looming global challenges.
Members of the University of Virginia School of Law community have recently been singled out for excellence. Among the accolades, Professor Frederick Schauer has won the 2023 Scribes Book Award for “The Proof.”
A federal agency responsible for reviewing requests to build interstate natural gas pipelines almost always approves them. Professor Alison Gocke explores the reasons why on the latest episode of “Common Law,” a podcast of the University of Virginia School of Law.
Members of the University of Virginia School of Law community have recently been singled out for excellence. Among the accolades, Dean Risa Goluboff has been named to the Equal Justice Works board of directors.
Members of the University of Virginia School of Law community have recently been singled out for excellence. Among the accolades, Spencer Haydary ’23 was named a 2022 John A. Herring Scholar by the Serpentine Society and seven faculty members cracked the top 75 among the most-cited law professors in the U.S.
Alison Gocke, an environmental law scholar with expertise in energy from both the scientific and legal perspectives, will join the University of Virginia School of Law faculty this summer.
In “Wastelands,” University of Virginia School of Law alumnus Corban Addison ’04 uncovers the story of the environmental lawsuit against Smithfield, the country’s largest pork producer.
Brecken Petty, a second-year student at the University of Virginia School of Law, discusses her interest in environmental law and goals as president of Virginia Law Women.
University of Virginia School of Law professor Moira O’Neill led a yearlong California-funded investigation that culminated last week in the release of a report that requires the city to improve a zoning and permitting process that has stymied construction.
Erik Bodenhofer ’01, general counsel of Reebok International, discusses environmental, social and governance — known as ESG — issues from an in-house perspective. Professor Cale Jaffe ’01 moderated. The event was sponsored by the John W. Glynn Jr. Law & Business Program and the Program in Law
The symposium provided a setting for interdisciplinary conversations about a range of topics, including property rights, land use regulation, housing, sustainability, segregation, metropolitan inequality, cities, rural communities and federal-state-local relations.
A Conversation With Brenda Mallory: New Horizons in Environmental Policy
Lillian Stone Distinguished Lecture on Environmental Policy
Monday, April 8, 2024
Brenda Mallory, chair of the Council on Environmental Quality, will deliver the Lillian Stone Distinguished Lecture on Environmental Policy at the University of Virginia. As chair, Mallory advises the president on environmental and natural resources policies that improve, preserve, and protect public health and the environment for America’s communities. The lecture, made possible through a gift from University of Virginia alumni Thatcher Stone (Law ’82) and Frank Kittredge (Architecture ’78), is hosted jointly by the Schools of Architecture and Law. The lectureship is intended to fulfill the intellectual and educational commitments of the two schools by creating an opportunity for students to be educated in environmental policy and the National Environmental Policy Act. The Council on Environmental Quality, situated in the White House, is the nation’s lead office on implementation of NEPA. The talk will be followed by a reception.
This series of virtual conversations — sponsored with the Virginia Environmental Law Journal and the Virginia Environmental Law Forum — explores connections between human place-based relationships and the law and politics of environmental governance.
PLACE and Power: A Conversation With Sarah Krakoff and Gerald Torres About the Environment and Native American Rights
Professors Sarah Krakoff and Gerald Torres will discuss issues of politics, justice and progress at the intersection of environmental governance and the rights and interests of Native American peoples. The discussion will focus on threats to lands and other natural and cultural resources, such as Bears Ears, and the exclusion of historic tribal uses from publicly managed lands, such as the Grand Canyon.
Krakoff, a nationally recognized expert in Native American law, natural resources law and environmental justice, is the Moses Lasky Professor of Law at the University of Colorado. She is the recipient of two university-wide awards: the Hazel Barnes Prize for distinguished scholarship and teaching, and the Chase Community Service Award for her public service work with low-income communities.
Torres, also a distinguished scholar of environmental law and federal Native American law, is a Professor of Environmental Justice at the Yale School of the Environment and professor of law at Yale Law School. His research into how race and ethnicity impact environmental policy has informed his teaching and practical experiences, and has been widely influential in the field of environmental justice.
The event is the fourth in the “PLACE and Power” series of virtual conversations exploring connections between human place-based relationships and the law and politics of environmental governance, including governance of the built environment.
PLACE and Power: Pathways to Racial and Economic Equity
Tuesday, Nov. 10, 2020
Scholars, authors and policy activists David Troutt and Thad Williamson will discuss the pathways to racial and economic equity in cities and in the nation as a whole, with a focus on the effects of local and regional housing, employment and anti-poverty policies.
Troutt, a Distinguished Professor of Law at Rutgers Law School, is the founding director of the Rutgers Center on Law, Inequality and Metropolitan Equity, and teaches and writes about race, class and legal structure. His most recent book, “The Price of Paradise: The Costs of Inequality and a Vision for a More Equitable America,” is an exploration of the unequal legal geographies of metropolitan America and a mutuality-based argument for regional equity policies.
Williamson, an associate professor of leadership studies and philosophy at the University of Richmond, served as the first director of Richmond’s Office of Community Wealth Building from 2014-16 and then as a senior policy adviser in the Mayor’s Office in a part-time capacity from 2017-18. He is author or editor of several books, including “Sprawl, Justice and Citizenship: The Civic Costs of the American Way of Life,” and co-editor of a new volume titled “Community Wealth Building and the Reconstruction of American Democracy: Can We Make American Democracy Work?”
The event is the third in the “PLACE and Power” series of virtual conversations exploring connections between human place-based relationships and the law and politics of environmental governance, including governance of the built environment.
PLACE and Power: A Conversation With Mary Nichols and Ann Carlson
California Air Resources Board Chair Mary D. Nichols and UCLA law professor Ann E. Carlson will discuss the productive but fraught relationship between cities, states and national environmental decisions-makers, with a focus on the important strides made to improve air quality in California over the past several decades.
Carlson, one of the country’s leading scholars of climate change law and policy, is the Shirley Shapiro Professor of Environmental Law, and the inaugural faculty director of the Emmett Institute on Climate Change and the Environment at the UCLA School of Law. She is also on the faculty of the UCLA Institute of the Environment and Sustainability.
Nichols joined the California Air Resources Board in 2007. She has also served as California’s secretary for Natural Resources (1999-2003); a senior staff attorney for the Natural Resources Defense Council; assistant administrator for the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s Office of Air and Radiation; and head of the Institute of Environment and Sustainability at UCLA.
PLACE and Power: A Conversation With Emily Prifogle and Earl Swift
Legal historian Emily Prifogle and author Earl Swift will discuss the importance of rural places in shaping the laws, customs and attitudes of the people who live in them, as well as their role in the cultural and political future of the nation.
Prifogle, a University of Michigan Law School professor, focuses on the use and experience of law in rural areas. She is currently working on a book that tells a story of the rural Midwest in a constant process of transformation along lines of class, race and gender in the 20th century.
Swift is a journalist and author of “Chesapeake Requiem: A Year with the Watermen of Vanishing Tangier Island.” The book records Tangier Island’s distinctive community as the physical place that defines and supports it shrinks with the rising waters of the Chesapeake Bay.
BOOK PANEL
Reviving Rationality: Saving Cost-Benefit Analysis for the Sake of the Environment and Our Health
Tuesday, Nov. 17
In their new book “Reviving Rationality: Saving Cost-Benefit Analysis for the Sake of the Environment and Our Health,” UVA Law professor Michael Livermore and New York University School of Law professor Richard Revesz argue that President Donald Trump’s administration has destabilized the decades-long bipartisan consensus that federal agencies must base their decisions on evidence, expertise and analysis.
In a panel moderated by PLACE Director Jonathan Z. Cannon, the authors and other scholars will discuss the future of cost-benefit analysis and environmental law and policy.
Panelists
Jonathan Adler, Johan Verheij Memorial Professor of Law; Director, Coleman P. Burke Center for Environmental Law, Case Western Reserve University School of Law
Michael Livermore, Edward F. Howrey Professor of Law, University of Virginia School of Law
Richard Revesz, Lawrence King Professor of Law; Dean Emeritus; Director, Institute for Policy Integrity, New York University School of Law
Amy Sinden, Professor of Law, Temple University Beasley School of Law
Moderator:Jonathan Z. Cannon, Blaine T. Phillips Distinguished Professor of Environmental Law; Director, Program in Law, Communities and the Environment (PLACE), University of Virginia School of Law
The practice of investing in funds and companies that pay attention to environmental, social and corporate governance issues could be at a turning point, say UVA Law professors Quinn Curtis and Paul G. Mahoney.
