John Caldwell

Earthjustice (Seattle, WA)

This past summer I used my PILP stipend to work as a law clerk in the Seattle office of Earthjustice. As a prominent national environmental nonprofit law firm, their efforts are focused on protecting the environment through litigation of cases that have a significant impact on the environment. In the Seattle office, we focus on forestry and wildlife issues, but also cover a wide range of environmental concerns specific to the Pacific Northwest. As a legal clerk, I got to work on a variety of projects involving several different environmental issues. I worked on, among other things, some cases trying to restrict the use of a few particularly harmful pesticides, strategy to force more consideration of greenhouse gas emissions, protecting endangered salmon habitat, and even a superfund case. This is exactly the kind of work I would like to do when I graduate. It was great to actually get paid for doing the things that I had either been doing for free (NEDC) or actually been paying to do (learn about environmental law, ie. school). For me, this was an ideal opportunity to work with some very intelligent and affable attorneys. It was also a great opportunity to network and meet environmental attorneys from other organizations and law firms in the Seattle area. And as an added bonus, the summers in Seattle are nearly as perfect as the summers in Portland. It was a great experience and PILP helped make it possible.