JASON J. CZARNEZKI

Pace Law School is looking to hire an Environmental Law Professor this year. Here is the job posting:

Pace University School of Law hopes to hire two full-time tenured or tenure-track-law professors to join our faculty commencing in the 2015-2016 academic year. For at least one of the hires, we are particularly interested in candidates with demonstrated interests and accomplishments in the Environmental Law area, but we are open to outstanding candidates with other interests and talents as well. Although our focus is on entry-level hires, we will also consider applications from experienced candidates. For our Faculty Appointments Procedure, see <http://www.law.pace.edu/aboutpace/policy_appointmentsProcedures.html>.

Candidates should have outstanding writing skills, demonstrated records of scholarly achievement and a strong commitment to enriching both our curriculum and our academic community. We are particularly interested in candidates who can bring diverse viewpoints to the classroom.

Applications are especially encouraged from people of color, individuals of varied sexual and affectational orientations, individuals who are differently-abled, veterans of the armed forces or national service, and anyone whose background and experience will contribute to the diversity of our faculty. Pace is committed to achieving completely equal opportunity in all aspects of University life.

Pace University School of Law is located in suburban White Plains, New York, in Westchester County, approximately 20 miles north of New York City. Our reputation and strong financial aid and scholarship program attract diverse and talented students from several states and a number of foreign countries. The Law School’s primary commitment is to provide its students with the skills, knowledge, and values necessary to be effective and ethical lawyers as well as community leaders.

To apply, please send resume, references, and if available, sample publications, teaching materials, and/or evaluations of or by students, to:

Professor Ann Bartow

Chair, Faculty Appointments Committee

Pace University School of Law

78 North Broadway

White Plains, N.Y. 10603

e-mail: abartow

Law schools seek to create systematic approach to local control and drilling (Tuesday, May 27, 2014)

Pamela King, E&E reporter

Legal scholars are embarking on a project to bridge a regulatory gap that has pushed many municipalities to ban hydraulic fracturing within their borders.

Rather than booting out the oil and gas industry altogether, the Pace Law School Land Use Law Center and the Yale Center for Environmental Law & Policy are proposing a solution that would merge community and industry interests to buffer residents from drilling’s negative impacts while allowing them to reap its economic benefits.

"It appears that fracking is going to be going forward in most states, and in most states there are a lot of impacts of fracking that are not going to be regulated by the state agency or by the federal government," said John Nolon, a professor at Pace Law School. "So those are impacts that local governments are going to feel."

Pace has a long history in municipal training. Since 1995, the land law center’s Land Use Leadership Alliance Training Program has worked with suburban and rural communities in New York, Pennsylvania, Utah and other places to protect and restore watersheds, historic centers and farmland. Pace trainers have looked at industry developments like wind farms, examined effective local government approaches to regulating those projects and shared those strategies with community leaders who come through their program.

"When we took a look at fracking, we didn’t find that," Nolon said.

There are very few examples of communities that have created rules that strike a balance between preventing potential damage and leaving the door open for economic benefits of oil and gas development, he said. Frustrated by industry’s push and overwhelmed by the myriad impacts oil and gas extraction imposes, some towns — including many in New York, which has a statewide de facto moratorium on fracking — have banned it completely.

Nolon hopes Pace and Yale can work with community leaders to design best practices for towns that face oil and gas development. If those guidelines are successful, they could gain popularity on a larger scale.

"You begin to get a national solution out of a bottom-up process," he said.

So far, Pace and Yale have convened two workshops — in December and March — to identify the local impacts and benefits of oil and gas activity. They invited community decisionmakers from across the country to discuss approaches they have used to control energy development in their own towns.

Among the attendees was John Smith, an attorney for Pennsylvania townships that challenged parts of a state law that would have taken away municipal power to control Marcellus Shale drilling through zoning (EnergyWire, April 4).

He applauded the Pace and Yale project and said he is astonished that it has taken this long for anyone to take a systematic look at local control. Drilling in the Marcellus has been underway since the mid-2000s.

"There are so few on what I would say is our side of the fence," Smith said. "Somone has to step up and help these local governments."

Other participants included Stephen Ross, who as a Santa Fe County, N.M., attorney helped develop a rigorous drilling ordinance in 2008, and Terrence Welch, a lawyer for local governments in North Texas.

In their eyes, health, safety and surface impacts are the most concerning effects communities face from oil and gas development.

Mark Boling, president of Southwestern Energy Co.’s V+ Development Solutions, said he is open to allowing localities to determine where and, in some areas, how extraction is conducted. But technical rules should be left to state regulators with the expertise to address such issues, he said.

Municipal officials are saying, "’Don’t forget about us,’" Boling said. "By human nature, people are going to want to protect" the places where they live.

He would like to see companies sit down with community officials to discuss concerns before drilling starts.

"We always strive to be, rather than tolerated, accepted into a community," he said. "A good neighbor works through the problem."

Pace and Yale are currently analyzing findings from their December and March meetings and are working on a white paper to be released midsummer.

I am honored and excited to have been named Executive Director of Environmental Law Programs at Pace Law School. Follow us on Twitter: @PaceEnviroLaw

Jason Czarnezki’s article, Advancing the Rebirth of Environmental Common Law, 34 B.C. Envtl. Aff. L.Rev. 1 (2007), was cited by the Iowa Supreme Court in Freeman v. Grain Processing Corp., No. 13-0723, 2014 WL 2619409 (Iowa June 13, 2014). The opinion is here http://www.iowacourts.gov/About_the_Courts/Supreme_Court/Supreme_Court_Opinions/Recent_Opinions/20140613/13-0723.pdf. Cited on pages 9 and 18.

Great meeting at Chinese Consulate in New York with former Congressman and Pace Law School Dean Emeritus Dick Ottinger and Chinese Ambassador Sun Guoxiang discussing US-China relations, energy and environmental policy, and increased university relations–and the tea was really fantastic.

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Visiting Assistant Professor (VAP) in Environmental Law at Pace Law School

Pace Law School seeks applicants for a new Visiting Assistant Professor (VAP) in Environmental Law. The VAP in Environmental Law will hold a one-year appointment, renewable for a second one-year term. The appointment is designed to mentor and train future environmental law professors.

The VAP will have a reduced teaching load of one course per semester, the opportunity to focus on scholarly research and writing, and the expectation that s/he will enter the law school teaching market. The VAP will receive the same office and administrative support as other faculty members, is invited to participate fully in faculty activities, and will receive a small travel and research fund. Additionally, the VAP will present a work in progress at Pace Law School’s Future Environmental Law Professors Workshop, receive feedback and mentoring from other scholars, and present a finished manuscript to the faculty at our weekly scholarly colloquium.

The salary for the VAP in Environmental Law is $55,000 per year plus benefits, including health and dental insurance. The VAP will not be eligible for a full-time tenure-track or tenured faculty appointment at Pace Law School until after six years following the completion of his/her term in residence.

Candidates will be selected based on their prior work and educational experience, and teaching and scholarly potential. Pace is committed to achieving equal opportunity in all aspects of University life. Applications are encouraged from people of color, individuals of varied sexual and affectional orientations, individuals who are differently-abled, veterans of the armed forces or national service, and anyone whose background and experience will contribute to the diversity of the law school. Pace is committed to achieving completely equal opportunity in all aspects of University life.

Applicants should submit:

• Curriculum Vitae (that lists three references and law school courses the candidate would be interested in teaching)
• If possible, one published scholarly article or unpublished paper draft that reflects the candidate’s scholarly interests and potential

The application deadline is May 1, 2014.

If you would like to be considered for a Visiting Assistant Professor in Environmental Law appointment beginning in the Fall of 2014, please send your application materials via email to Professor Jason J. Czarnezki at jczarnezki. Only electronic submissions will be accepted.

(1) Where the hell is the plane?

(2) Why on earth do law professors let student-run journals decide the fate of our work?
(2) Twitter or Facebook?

You can now follow me on Twitter @czarnezki