JASON J. CZARNEZKI

The Center for Ocean Solutions, based in Monterey and Stanford, California, is seeking a legal and policy intern for the summer of 2011.  See here.

Second Annual Colloquium on Environmental Scholarship

at Vermont Law School

September 23, 2011

CALL FOR ABSTRACTS

Vermont Law School will host the Second Annual Colloquium on Environmental Scholarship on September 23, 2011.  The Colloquium offers the opportunity for environmental law scholars to present their works-in-progress and recent scholarship, to get feedback from their colleagues, and to meet and interact with those who are also teaching and researching in the environmental and natural resources law area.

If you are interested in presenting a paper at the Colloquium, please submit a working title and short abstract to Professor Jason J. Czarnezki at czarnezki@gmail.com no later than April 15, 2011. For an abstract to be eligible for submission, the author must anticipate that the paper will still be at a revisable stage (neither published nor so close to publication that significant changes are not feasible) by the date of the Colloquium.  We will do our best to include all interested presenters, and will notify authors about acceptances no later than May 2011.

In a slight modification to last year’s format, this year, all selected participants will be required to submit a paper draft no later than September 1, 2011, and all participants will be asked to provide commentary on another participant’s paper draft at the Colloquium.  Final papers will also be eligible for publication in the Vermont Journal of Environmental Law.

The Colloquium will take place on Friday, September 23, and Vermont Law School’s Environmental Law Center and its faculty will host a cocktail reception on Thursday evening, and dinner on Friday evening.  Further Colloquium details regarding schedule, events, lodging, and transportation will be forthcoming and available at http://www.vermontlaw.edu.

Vermont Law School Associate Professor David Mears, a national leader in environmental law, was appointed by Vermont Gov.-elect Peter Shumlin today as commissioner of the Vermont Department of Environmental Conservation.

Mears, who is director of VLS’s Environmental and Natural Resources Law Clinic and Land Use Clinic, is currently on a Fulbright Scholarship at Sun Yat-Sen University in China, where he was to spend the 2010-2011 academic year lecturing and developing environmental clinical programs to strengthen enforcement of China’s anti-pollution laws. He will cut his Fulbright Scholarship to one semester and return to Vermont in January to assume his position as DEC commissioner.

VLS Dean Jeff Shields and Professor Marc Mihaly, director of the school’s Environmental Law Center, said Mears contributed greatly to VLS. “We’re confident David will play a leading role in the new administration at this critical time in Vermont’s history,” Mihaly said. Associate Professor Teresa Clemmer has been acting director of VLS’s environmental law and land use clinics while Mears has been in China and will continue in that role until a permanent director is appointed.

Mears, who joined the VLS faculty in 2005, specializes in environmental law and environmental litigation. He has expertise in the major pollution laws, water resources law, federal facilities regulation and state and federal sovereignty. He received his B.S. degree from Cornell University in 1985 and his J.D. degree, summa cum laude, and Master of Environmental Law and Policy degree from Vermont Law School in 1991. Following law school, he was an assistant attorney general in the Texas Office of the Attorney General, a senior attorney with the Texas Natural Resource Conservation Commission and the energy and environmental policy director with the Texas Office for State-Federal Relations in Washington, D.C. He then served as a trial attorney and counselor for state and local affairs with the U.S. Department of Justice, Environment and Natural Resources Division. In 1998, he was appointed senior assistant attorney general in the Washington Office of the Attorney General, Ecology Division.

“I am excited about this new opportunity but sad to leave VLS,” he said. “It’s been an inspiring place to teach environmental law—the students, faculty and staff share a love of learning and are committed to using the law to make the world better. I take solace in the fact that I will be just up the road in Waterbury and look forward to staying in touch with my friends and colleagues in South Royalton.”

See here.

A Summit on the Future of Vermont’s Working Landscape will be held at the Vermont State House on Friday, December 10, discussing the challenges facing the agricultural and forest-based enterprises in Vermont.  Full agenda available here.