Administrative Law

This basic three hour course in Administrative Law studies the legal functioning of government agencies. Agency actions resemble actions of legislatures and courts, prosecutors and advocates, and "neutral" bodies with highly specialized technical expertise. Consequently, interesting problems of procedure, scope of judicial oversight, fundamental fairness and political influence have arisen and are in tension with each other. We will touch on these issues as we focus on the fundamental principles of Administrative Law. We will use a traditional casebook, focused on federal administrative law - where the core principles have been most fully developed.

Climate Law and Energy

The course will begin with a look at the emerging evidence of climate disruption from man-made causes, also considering the anticipated problems stemming from rising surface temperatures, including physical and sociological impacts as well as national security issues.  We will then examine current proposals for mitigating climate change, including the international, federal, state and local proposals to reduce green house gases, including carbon trading regimes.  The proposals for climate change adaptation will be covered as well.  Mitigation and adaptation strategies will be evaluated using various criteria, such as efficiency, effectiveness, ease of administration and distributional fairness.  The course will also cover climate litigation, including emerging public nuisance claims and climate change issues arising under existing federal environmental statutes.  Lastly, we will also consider current energy policy and how the legal regimes for addressing climate change are likely to impact the energy sector.  The text used will be WOLD, HUNTER AND POWERS, CLIMATE CHANGE AND THE LAW (2009), and evaluation will be by an examination at the end of the semester.  No prerequisite law course is required.

Energy and the Environment

The Energy and Environment is designed primarily to examine the environmental effects of energy policy in the United States and abroad. The course will begin with an examination of market power and regulation of the energy market, including rate regulation principles. In particular, students will consider the use of water, coal, petroleum, natural gas, coal bed methane and nuclear materials for energy production, and the licensing, siting and environmental issues involved. Also covered in the course will be global energy related issues, including climate change, protection of fragile environments and human rights issues. The course also looks at emerging energy production alternatives such as cool and hot renewables, energy conservation, and green programs. The text used will be Bosselman, et. al., Energy, Economics and the Environment (3nd Ed), and evaluation will be by an examination at the end of the semester.

Environmental Justice Seminar

Environmental justice is asignificant and dynamic contemporary development in environmental law.
This seminar will focus upon the environmental justice movement and theway that people of color, the poor, indigenous communities and tribal governments have challenged the fundamental ideologies that support environmental policy and regulation. The course begins with an examination of various conceptions of justice, studies about disparities in environmental harms and benefits, and theories concerning the causes of such inequities. Seminar participants will then examine class and racial inequities in a variety of regulatory contexts, including risk assessment, standard setting, permitting, enforcement and the cleanup of contaminated lands. The course concludes with a look at various legal

tools used in the effort to achieve environmental justice, including citizen suit enforcement of environmental laws, claims brought under the Equal Protection Clause and Title VI of the Civil Rights Act, and various non-litigation strategies, including land use and planning tools, disclosure laws, and collaborative projects. Students will be required to write a research paper on an aspect of environmental justice that may meet the writing requirement of this two or three unit course.

The text used will be Rechtschaffen, Gauna and O'Neill, ENVIRONMENTAL JUSTICE: LAW, POLICY AND REGULATION (2ND Ed. 2009).

Environmental Law Moot Court Competition

The National Environmental Law Moot Court Competition is an annual inter-law school appellate moot court competition sponsored by Pace University School of Law. The number of teams typically ranges from 65 to 75 teams. The purpose of the competition is to develop expertise in environmental law appellate advocacy. The annual problem typically involves three parties: industry, government and an environmental protection group, and includes a variety of environmental law statutory issues, administrative law issues and common law claims.

Web Site http://www.pace.edu/page.cfm?doc_id=23579

Advisor
Professor Eileen Gauna (`85)

Students who are eligible
2L and 3L students only

Dates and timeline overview
Each team will write a brief for one of the respective party’s legal argument. The problem typically arrives at the end of September and the brief is due around the first part of December. Each team will participate in oral argument (as one of three adverse parties). The competition takes place around the third week of February at Pace Law School in White Plains, NY.
Registration is limited to one team per school, two or three students on the team.

Try out details
If there are more than three interested students, there may be an internal tryout competition that may involve writing a mini-brief on an environmental issue and an oral argument judged by local lawyers. 

What to expect
The issues in this specialized area are generally technically and legally complex and involve three distinct interest groups. The time commitment is substantial. The brief, due the first part of December, cannot have any participation or input by anyone other than the team members. There will be at least 10 practice oral argument sessions, lasting about two hours each. Because attorneys volunteer for these sessions, they will often be held at night or during the weekend. In January and during the first two weeks in February, students can expect three practice sessions per week.

Property I

This first year course is an introduction to the basic concepts of property law, focusing on the role of possession in allocating the various rights and responsibilities connected with personal and real property. The course covers acquisition of initial property rights, adverse possession, donative transfers, the evolution and nomenclature of interests in estates in land and future interest, concurrent property rights, and marital property.