Environmental Law Clinic 2025 Highlights
Environmental Law Clinic students and faculty along with their co-counsel and clients in front of CDPHE after a rulemaking before the Air Quality Control Commission.
The Environmental Law Clinic (ELC) has continued helping communities access regulatory and other legal processes to protect their health and environment. This semester, the ELC's work has included representing communities in North Denver and Commerce City to ensure that their voices and perspectives are heard as part of ongoing state regulation of toxic air pollution.
Tess Foels, a student attorney who was involved with that work, remarked "among the myriad of meaningful clinic experiences thus far, representing local communities in administrative rule makings has shaped both the type of lawyer and person I wish to become. I am continuously inspired by the people of Colorado who do not bow in the face of large industries, and I am deeply honored to work as a student attorney in elevating their voices."
In addition, the ELC traveled to the San Luis Valley to meet with ranchers and community advocates, learn about water issues facing that area, and support the community's work protecting ecological health.
ELC Faculty Highlights
Associate Professor Wyatt Sassman
Publications:
NATURAL RESOURCES LAW (West Academic Publishing, 4th ed.) (forthcoming 2026) (with Jan G. Laitos);
What’s Left of Environmental Democracy? 49 HARV. ENVTL. L. REV. 461 (2025);
The Legal Foundations of Extractive Power, 71 UCLA L. REV. 66 (2024).
Professor Kevin Lynch, executive associate dean of academic affairs, has authored several current and forthcoming publications:
Breaking our Consumption Addiction, in "The Good Life in the Anthropocene" (Bork, Galperin, Hirokawa & Owley, eds.) (forthcoming 2026);
Breaking our Consumption Addiction, in Living the Good Life in the Anthropocene: Essays from the Environmental Law Collaborative, 54 Envt’l L. Rep. 10,857 (2024);
Forced Pooling: The Unconstitutional Taking of Private Property, 75 UC Law SF Journal 1335 (2024);
Preemption: Opportunities and Obstacles for Climate Adaptation, in "Adapting to High-Level Warming: Equity, Governance, and the Law" (Roesler & Kuh, eds.) (2024);
Western Water Rights in a 4°C Future (with Shi-Ling Hsu and Karrigan Börk), in "Adapting to High-Level Warming: Equity, Governance, and the Law" (Roesler & Kuh, eds.) (2024).
