In an effort to integrate climate change and sustainability into legal education, the American Bar Association’s Section of Environment, Energy, and Resources (“SEER”), has developed a resource page on “Sustainable Development Resources for Law School Educators.” Two Lewis & Clark Law School professors, Gregg Macey and Erica Lyman, contributed papers for this resource.
Dr. Macey’s publication for SEER, “Higher Education’s Response to the Polycrisis,” was written as part of his work on the American Bar Association’s Task Force on Sustainability and Climate Change in Legal Education. The task force considered approaches to supplement or embed climate and sustainability into legal education, outlined the necessary supportive infrastructure at the university and departmental levels, and issued recommendations for legal educators. It also prepared resources for integrating these topics into doctrinal and experiential courses, curricular requirements, and university-wide initiatives. Dr. Macey outlines factors that call for legal educators to more carefully and comprehensively embed climate change and sustainable development within U.S. legal education as well as progress to date. “However, we assess that these efforts fall short. Our assessment is based on the context in which attorneys will practice law, the projected role of climate and sustainability in global legal frameworks, and existing and future global commitments to mitigation, adaptation, and resilience.”
Prof. Lyman’s paper, co-authored with Professor Abigail Fleming (University of Miami), “Incorporating Climate Change and Sustainability into Clinical Teaching,” encourages legal educators and law schools to incorporate the implications of climate change and sustainability into clinical teaching across environmental clinics. The piece also encourages the adoption of pedagogical tools that help students contend with and address complex, climate-related societal problems, both in the development of their own professional identity and on behalf of their clients.
The article outlines the need for clinical curriculum design that integrates sustainability and climate competencies as pedagogical principles, secures institutional funding structures to support vulnerable communities, adopts justice-centered and intersectional perspectives, and teaches cross-cultural, practice-ready, frontline community-facing, and trauma-informed lawyering skills.
Lyman’s second contributing piece, co-authored with Professor Alice Kaswan (University of San Francisco) and Professor Abigail Flemming, “Institutional Support for Incorporating Sustainability and Climate Change into the Law School Curriculum,” surveys literature about law schools, globally and in the U.S., that address climate change through curriculum design and institutional commitment.
Dr. Gregg Macey is the newly appointed director of Environmental Innovation at Lewis & Clark, where he works to advance teaching and learning models across schools and departments; form interdisciplinary partnerships; conduct policy-relevant research; provide access to public and human services; and expand capacity of agencies, local and state governments, nonprofits, and community organizations to address environmental challenges by leveraging the College’s resources in new ways. As an experienced law professor, litigator, mediator, and policy designer, his work focuses on environmental law, climate policy, environmental justice, civil rights, and land use.
Since 2005, Prof. Erica Lyman has taught and served as director of L&C Law School’s international environmental and animal law clinic, the Global Law Alliance, where she guides law students to conduct meaningful, innovative legal work to address the intersecting crises of climate change, biodiversity loss, pollution, and habitat loss. The Global Law Alliance is a champion for wild animals and wild spaces across the globe, working to protect animals and the environment through the development, implementation, and enforcement of international law. Law students (JD and LLM) actively participate in the work through two clinics within the Alliance.
