Yale Law School Environmental Justice Law and Advocacy Clinic
Angie Kaufman, 3L, Yale School of Environment (MEM), Vermont Law School
Ava McKallip, 2L, Yale Law School
Asha Brundage-Moore, Yale Law School - Visiting Clinical Lecturer in Law
After a brief overview of Yale Law School’s EJLA Clinic, we’ll showcase a current matter with themes that resonate throughout the country: fighting the Lowell, Massachusetts data center. We’ll introduce the audience to Lowell, a state-designated environmental justice community, before discussing the history of the Markley Group, LLC’s data center expansion dating back to the mid-2010’s. Markley’s rapid AI-driven expansion over the last several years has saturated the community’s air with emissions and incessant noise, leaving residents to suffer the consequences. These violative actions prompted the formation of the community organization Honest Future for Lowell, our client group. We’ll review legal actions and related organizing and advocacy that our clients have undertaken to protect their community and other Massachusetts residents facing data center development.
Vermont Law and Graduate School Clinics
Madison Foley, Environmental Advocacy Clinic
Christophe Courchesne, Associate Professor of Law, Associate Dean for Environmental and Experiential Programs, Director Environmental Law Center, and Co-Director Environmental Advocacy Clinic
Harvard Law School Emmett Environmental Law & Policy Clinic and Environmental Moot Court Initiative
Sommer Engels, Clinical Instructor, Emmett Environmental Law & Policy Clinic, Harvard Law School
Cassidy McKee, 2L, Emmett Environmental Law & Policy Clinic, Harvard Law School
Sommer and Cassidy will discuss the Clinic’s current work and priorities with a special focus on the Harvard Environmental Moot Court Initiative, which is run through the Clinic.
Suffolk University Law School Environmental Law and Policy Clinic
Teri Donaldson, Visiting Assistant Professor and Director, ELPC
Laurel Coomes, 3L, Student Practitioner, ELPC
Colby Storey, 3L, Student Practitioner, ELPC
About The Clinics
The Harvard Law School Emmett Environmental Law & Policy Clinic focuses on environmental, natural resources, energy, public health, and social justice issues. The Clinic works with experts and professionals in a variety of fields, public interest organizations, Native American communities, and government clients on legal issues at the federal, state, and local levels. Students in the Clinic write briefs and comment letters, develop litigation strategies, and draft model legislation. The Clinic also manages and staffs the Harvard Environmental Moot Court Initiative, through which Harvard faculty, staff, students, and Clinic partners work with groups across the country to help advocates prepare for oral arguments in federal appellate courts.
The Environmental Advocacy Clinic (EAC) at Vermont Law and Graduate School is a public interest environmental law firm. Its mission is to inspire the next generation of environmental attorneys with practical, real-world opportunities to learn the skills and strategies of environmental litigation and advocacy. In the clinic, students represent public-interest clients, including leading national, regional, and local nonprofit organizations under the supervision of experienced lawyers, working on cases involving important and challenging environmental and natural resources issues. The EAC is one of VLGS is nine clinics, including five other environmental clinics: the Environmental Justice Clinic, the Farmed Animal Advocacy Clinic, the Energy Clinic, the Transnational Environmental Law Clinic, and the Food and Agriculture Clinic.
Students in the Yale Law School Environmental Justice Law and Advocacy (EJLA) Clinic represent Tribal Nations, community groups, and non-profit organizations and coalitions on advocacy projects that advance environmental justice and address intersectional concerns, including Tribal sovereignty, energy and climate, public health, civil rights, natural resource management, and participatory environmental governance. The clinic prioritizes legal services for underserved and historically marginalized communities. Through an integrated advocacy approach and close partnership with clients, the clinic tackles complex, neglected, and emerging environmental problems. This includes inequitable distribution of environmental benefits and burdens, exclusion of impacted communities from decision-making processes on land use, energy, water, and related environmental matters, and repair for communities that have been alienated from environmental resources and governance. Under the direction of Stephanie Safdi and this year’s clinical teaching fellows Asha Brundage-Moore and Joseph Brau, students in the clinic practice as lead attorneys in their matters. Through this approach, the clinic aims to train creative, reflective, and collaborative lawyers prepared to advance novel solutions to hard problems.
Suffolk University Law School Environmental Law and Policy Clinic (ELPC) provides legal assistance across a broad range of environmental and climate change issues. The ELPC offers support to legislators, government agencies, nonprofits, community organizations, and citizens groups. Student practitioners in the ELPC may engage in practical lawyering by interviewing witnesses, preparing expert testimony, attending hearings, arguing in court, and advising legislative and executive staff. The students may draft pleadings, comment letters, briefings, whitepapers, legislative advisories, and materials for administrative proceedings. Students interact with policymakers, environmental lawyers, engineers, scientists, and other experts in environmental law and land use. The students manage complex files as both lead counsel and co-counsel, as practicing lawyers often do. If you have any questions, please contact Visiting Assistant Clinical Professor Teri Donaldson at teri.donaldson@suffolk.edu. or Senior Advisor Robert Cox at robert.cox@suffolk.edu.