Waanders Appointed First Environmental Law Fellow

The Law School has appointed its first Environmental Law Fellow, Jason Waanders, to assist the School in organizing an Environmental Law Program. Waanders, the George W. Foley Jr. Fellow in Environmental Law, will work with Dean Robert Clark, faculty, staff, students, and alumni to develop a strategic plan for building an environmental law program at the School.

"I am very excited that Jason Waanders has been selected to lead the development of this program," said Clark. "His appointment is part of the Law School's ongoing commitment to become a leader in the area of environmental law."

Waanders is a 1998 graduate of the Law School and was president of the School's Environmental Law Society. He spent his summers as a law student working on environmental law issues with the Earthjustice Legal Defense Fund and with the San Diego law firm of Luce, Forward, Hamilton & Scripps. A graduate of Harvard College, Waanders' thesis topic was "Environmentalism and National Identity in Post-Chernobyl Ukraine and Belarus."

"My position has been established in order to help the Law School take some concrete steps toward improving the environmental law curriculum here with the long-term goal of creating an environmental law program on the level of those existing at the nation's other top law schools," said Waanders.

His activities will include:

providing assistance to the faculty appointments committee and other faculty committees as they make decisions that impact the curriculum;

working with the School's administration, alumni, and development office to draft a strategic plan for the development of the environmental law program;

serving as a resource for students interested in environmental issues.

"I'll be working with the School's Office of Public Interest Advising and its Clinical Programs office to identify and promote environmental jobs," Waanders said. "I'll also be here to help with environmental research projects, cross-registration, and however else I can make myself useful. I'd thus like to encourage interested students to contact me."

As part of the School's commitment to building an international environmental law program, it has named Jonathan Wiener of Duke University a visiting professor for the spring term. He will teach the Environmental Law course and the seminar, Risk Regulation and Its Reform.

Third-year student Paul Weiland, editor in chief of the School's Environmental Law Journal, calls the Waanders appointment "a critical first step toward the development of an Environmental Law Program. His appointment is the product of years of work by the Environmental Working Group as well as the faculty, students, and alumni. We are all thrilled that progress has been made."