Cale Jaffe

Cale Jaffe is director of the Environmental Law and Community Engagement Clinic. Prior to joining the faculty at the University of Virginia, Jaffe was an attorney with the Southern Environmental Law Center, a leading environmental law and policy organization working at national, state and local levels. From 2013 to 2016, he was director of the center’s Virginia office. He was part of the SELC team that won a unanimous victory before the Supreme Court of the United States in Environmental Defense v. Duke Energy, 549 U.S. 561 (2007), and he has litigated numerous energy-related cases before the Virginia State Corp. Commission. In 2014, Jaffe was appointed by Virginia Governor Terry McAuliffe to serve on the Governor’s Climate Change and Resiliency Update Commission.

Jaffe graduated from Yale University with a B.A. in American studies. He earned his J.D. and an M.A. in legal history from the University of Virginia. While a student at Virginia, he served as editor-in-chief of the Virginia Environmental Law Journal, and was a member of the Order of the Coif and the Raven Society. After graduation, he clerked for Judge Norman K. Moon of the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Virginia and Judge Roger L. Gregory of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit.