Environmental and Land Use Law
Early in the planning of the Law School, UC Irvine identified environmental law as a core focus, building on the University's and Law School's longstanding commitment to the interdisciplinary study of environmental problems. Through its strong environmental faculty, new Environmental Law Clinic, and active Center for Land, Environment, and Natural Resources, UCI Law has rapidly become a prominent regional and national center for exploring and tackling important environmental and land use issues.
Courses
UCI Law offers a full range of courses dedicated to preparing students for the practice of environmental and land use law through the exploration of foundational issues of statutory and regulatory analysis, ethics, politics, and economics. Many of these courses also integrate skills components that explore issues in statutory interpretation, legal ethics, federalism, and standing through hypothetical problems as practiced from the perspective of environmental groups, government agencies, and regulated entity clients.
- Environmental Law
- Environmental Law Clinic
- International Environmental Law
- Public Lands/Natural Resources Law
- Administrative Law
- Land Use and Development Law
- Property
- Community and Economic Development Clinic
- Regulatory Design and Innovation
Hands-On Learning and Public Service
At UCI Law, students can get real-world environmental and natural resources law experience through clinics and provide public service in environmental law through pro bono work. The Environmental Law Clinic provides students the opportunity to work on cases and matters involving environmental, natural resources and/or energy law issues. Clinic students take an active role in matter development and case work, assuming substantial responsibility at an early stage. The Clinic represents clients involved in litigation (courts and administrative tribunals) and counsels clients in other fora. The Clinic’s case load is diverse, spanning a wide range of environmental and natural resources law, with the potential to cover local, regional and national issues ranging from air, water, and coastal pollution, to issues dealing with wildlife and marine protection, toxics, climate change and energy. The Clinic provides a rigorous and intellectually challenging educational experience for students interested in environmental and natural resources law, conservation, administrative law, and/or complex civil litigation.
Environmental and land use law pro bono projects at UCI Law have included work with the Surfrider Foundation, the Orange County Coastkeeper, Communities for a Better Environment, the Animal Legal Defense Fund, the Legal Aid Society of Orange County, and the Community and Economic Development unit of the Legal Aid Foundation of Los Angeles.
Center
UCI Law is also home to the Center for Land, Environment, and Natural Resources (CLEANR), which strives to make UC Irvine School of Law a nationally recognized site for scholarship, education, community outreach, and public engagement on environmental, natural resources, and land use law. The Center creates programs and other educational opportunities through which to disseminate information and facilitate dialogue about environmental issues.
The mission of the Center for Land, Environment and Natural Resources (CLEANR) is to promote innovative research and catalyze policy action in environmental and land use law.
CLEANR leverages the depth of experience and expertise of legal scholars, attorneys, geospatial analysts, urban and regional planners, and researchers in areas including ecology, climate science, environmental engineering, public health, informatics, and the social sciences, in close partnership with community leaders, government agencies, and non-governmental organizations in Southern California, the San Joaquin Valley, the Bay Area, and nationwide. Our Research centers equity, local action, maximizing community capacity and ownership, and addressing historical and structural injustices in order to carry out undone science that is of unique importance to underserved communities. Our Policy Workshops and Environmental Dispute Resolution (EDR) facilitate engagement with environmental issues among leading policymakers, practitioners, community organizations, scientists, scholars, and students in order to build advocacy networks, promote knowledge within and beyond the field, and advance law and policy on intractable environmental problems. CLEANR works with over 100 individuals and organizations across California and around the world to achieve these outcomes via Policy Workshops, interdisciplinary research teams, legal research, direct regulatory guidance, model legislation, Congressional briefings, peer-reviewed publications, and convenings.
CLEANR also actively collaborates with other environmental centers at UCI, including the university-wide Sustainability Initiative, the School of Biological Sciences Center for Environmental Biology, UCI’s Newkirk Center for Science and Society, and UCI Oceans.
Additional Opportunities
Environmental law opportunities at UCI Law go beyond coursework, clinics and public service. UCI Law sends a team of students to compete in the National Environmental Law Moot Court Competition, the State Bar of California’s Student Negotiations Competition, or the National Animal Law Competition. In addition, UCI Law students have established an Environmental Law Society and Student Animal Legal Defense Fund to provide fora for education, advocacy, networking, and scholarship on environmental law and animal law issues.