Environmental Justice in the Age of Trump: Engaging Students in Client-Driven Impact Lawyering

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Session Type: AALS Programs

Session Capacity: N/A

Hotel: N/A

Room: Wilson Room

Floor: Third Floor

In the last five years, a handful of law schools launched new environmental justice clinics, and pre-existing environmental and other clinics have deepened their environmental justice dockets. Heightened concern about climate change has also attracted a range of other clinics to the space. Legal work in the environmental justice context is, by definition, community-based; at the same time, these clinics also provide students with the opportunity to explore how the many forms of advocacy—counseling, community outreach, public education, communication, policy-making, administrative advocacy, litigation—complement one another. Moreover, given the challenges of the post-November, 2016 era, each of these clinics and their clients have had to regroup, and engaging students in strategic planning processes has created new pedagogical opportunities. This concurrent session will explore clinical practice and pedagogy through the lens of issues at the heart of environmental justice: for example, building relationships with communities, strategic planning, and developing both reactive capacity and affirmative goals. In this way, the session will address the core conference themes of integrating the lessons of past legal-political struggles in meeting contemporary strategic challenges and planning for the future in the classroom and in the field.