JD Law Students Blog

31 March 2007: faint blue light swirls up and fades, the dim dusk snuffed out into night.

The world is flush with opportunity for enterprising environmental attorneys. Not that this is necessarily a good thing. While it means that awareness of environmental problems is on the rise and concerns are no longer being shifted to the back burner, it is also an indication of the serious mess we are facing. So while the world goes to hell in a hand basket, as it so happens, VLS grads are going to have plenty of opportunities to make a living trying to save what we can.

Of course, it’s not as though we decided to pursue environmental law because we expected it to be lucrative. Most of us probably had expectations of going into government. We would help draft legislation, write regulations, and issue the opinions and guidance documents that would nudge our powerhouse of a post-industrial economy into more sustainable cycles of resource consumption. This is the hard work; the thankless work; the necessary work. Apparently, it is also a font of financial opportunity for the private sector.

This brings me closer to the title of this post. For all the work that must be done in the public sphere, it will accomplish nothing without the cooperation of the private. Business can be dragged kicking and screaming into the new era of environmental awareness or it can hit the ground running. By anticipating future legislation, even now, companies are capitalizing on carbon trading schemes, sharpening their skills in market-based regulatory programs implemented abroad. But these are the major players, by and large. They have the wherewithal to invest today in tomorrow’s commodities because their planning horizons extend much further than most. It is the world of small enterprise that really needs our help, and where the greatest opportunity awaits.

Many of us will make our fortunes cultivating clientèle savvy to global warming and its legal consequences. We will develop an extensive and sophisticated understanding of the regulatory mechanisms most commonly employed. Yes, the revolving door awaits. We will become fluent in all the right buzzwords of the day. We will seek out not only those companies that desire to lighten their footprint, but those hoping to profit by pioneering sustainable technologies. We will hone our pitch, for parties, over cocktails, take aim and take down an account before they even realize what hit them.

But for it all to work, we have to be hungry. I think most of us are. It will take a concerted effort on all fronts; we need the doubled momentum of both the public and private sectors moving in the same direction. We have to work together, no longer us against them. We have to be hungry enough to hunt together.

Then, we only have to remember to share.

It’s been a time, since I last re-entered the blogsphere…due in large part to the semester 2 workload, which is challenging in its breadth and scope. Second semester, year one means longer cases, more nuanced arguments and higher expectations based on the capacity you’ve been building since August.

It feels like discovering that you have superpowers. Suddenly, you can listen to an oral argument and understand the assertions being made. Classroom legal theory begins to reach out into the real world and all at once it seems you can make connections between facts, arguments and rhetoric. It’s like having x-ray vision, and is much cooler than it sounds.

Now, you may be inclined to ask …what have I been doing with my super powers? I’ve been listening to Supreme Court arguments for Con Law, traveling to Dartmouth to hear arguments at the Navajo Supreme Court and sitting in when the Vermont Supreme Court hears cases at the Law School. Primarily, I’ve just been using my newfound skills to delve deeper into the stuff lawyers really do, research. I’ve been reading, “holed up” in the library until closing, searching Westlaw and Lexis Nexus like a hungry beast trying to find cases and blurbs and squibs for memorandum. (Squibs are abstracts which briefly describe a case that relates to a point you are trying to make.)
I know that this stuff doesn’t sound sexy, but it is. Semester one is all about having your previous identity stripped from your present state of being. It can be painful, tiring and lonely but the bright side is that it doesn’t last that long. Second semester is loads of work but trust me, that’s better because it means that you’ve learned something and can start applying it to the universe of problems being thrown at you. It’s empowering and almost makes up for the scanty social life you’re left with during second semester. Trivia night, Wynterfoest and the “nerd Olympics” qualifier known as “broomball” keep you going between the endless winter and impending mud season.

Alas, spring break is upon us. In less than 24 hours I will be on a plane to the place where the rain falls mainly in the plains. J J J Spanish Constitutional Law in Sevilla is finally here and I am more than ready for a change of scenery. The weather report says I can leave my Northface uniform in Vermont and don a pair of sunglasses for sun rather than snow blindness. Yippee!! My goals are to learn something and eat some things one cannot find at the local SoRo eatery. I’ll report on my travels and good fortune in the next installment.

Hasta luego!

5 March 2007: Flurries, brief but furious, burning off in the sun.

Those who braved the Friday weather to attend the VJEL Symposium were well rewarded with what will be remembered as, without a doubt, one of the finest symposiums ever hosted at VLS. Though the Vermont Journal of Environmental Law will be publishing its Symposium issue sometime in May, nothing can come close to reproducing the buzz of intellectual engagement that hummed through the crowd in the Chase Center last week.That VJEL was able to arrange for such an impressive slate of speakers is a telling indicator of not only the Journal’s professionalism, but the importance of addressing rapid environmental degradation in China and its effects on that country’s people and the world. Not a panel concluded without insightful and frequently passionate commentary from the audience, including other panelists, students, and our own distinguished faculty.

The Symposium was conceived, coordinated and carried into action entirely by the effort of the VJEL Staff, though not without the much appreciated assistance of the VLS faculty, staff and administration. Support also came in part from the USAID grant, recently awarded to the school, and from the Institute for Energy & the Environment. All came together to put on a riveting and engaging Symposium on a crucial environmental and human rights issue facing our planet, reminding me why I chose to pursue a legal education at VLS in the first place.

So, “thanks” to everyone who made last Friday possible. It was an event like no other.