From Surviving to Thriving: Equity in Disaster Planning and Recovery

Rebecca M. Bratspies is Professor of Law at the CUNY School of Law in New York City.

Professor Bratspies has taught Environmental Law, Natural Resources Law, International Environmental Law, Property, Administrative Law, and Lawyering. She holds a J.D. cum laude from the University of Pennsylvania Law School and a B.A. in Biology from Wesleyan University. She has fused these skills into concerns about the environment, with a particular emphasis in genetically-modified crops, about which she has frequently written and presented.

Before teaching, Professor Bratspies served as a legal advisor to Taiwan's Environmental Protection Administration, interpreting international treaties, representing TEPA in settlement negotiations, advising on American laws and practices, presenting seminars on United States constitutional jurisprudence. She also served as a special adjunct attorney in Taiwan's Ministry of Justice. After returning from Taiwan, Bratspies practiced environmental, commercial, and class action litigation with a private firm. Major pro bono experience included two successful class action suits challenging Pennsylvania's implementation of welfare reform.

Professor Bratspies began her legal career as a law clerk to Judge C. Arlen Beam, United States Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit. She returned to academia in 1998 at New York University School of Law and then to the University of Idaho College of Law in 2001. During the 2003-2004 academic year, she served as Visiting Associate Professor of Law at Michigan State University-DCL, East Lansing, Michigan.

Professor Bratspies has recently published two books: Progress in International Institutions (with Russell Miller) (Martinus Nijoff: 2007), and Transboundary Harm in International Law: Lessons from the Trail Smelter Arbitration (with Russell Miller) (Cambridge University Press: 2006). Additionally, Bratspies has written in the areas of the human right to a healthy environment, sustainable fisheries management, regulation of genetically modified crops and the role of trust in regulatory systems. 

Rebecca Bratspies
CUNY School of Law
Flushing, NY
718.340.4505
email
website
 

Maxine Burkett is a Professor of Law at the William S. Richardson School of Law, University of Hawai'i at Manoa. 

Burkett teaches Climate Change Law and Policy, Torts, Ocean and Coastal Law, and International Environmental Law. She has written extensively in diverse areas of climate law with a particular focus on climate justice, exploring the disparate impact of climate change on vulnerable communities in the United States and globally. Professor Burkett has presented her research on the law and policy of climate change throughout the United States and in West Africa, Asia, Europe, and the Caribbean. Her work has been cited in numerous news and policy outlets, including BBC Radio, the ABA Journal, the New York Times, and Nature Climate Change.

In 2010, Burkett served as the Wayne Morse Chair of Law and Politics at the Wayne Morse Center, University of Oregon, for the Center’s “Climate Ethics and Climate Equity” theme of inquiry. Other Wayne Morse Chairs include Charles Ogletree, Jr., Vandana Shiva, Barbara Ehrenreich, and Russ Feingold. Burkett is the youngest recipient of the Chair. 

From 2009-2012, Professor Burkett also served as the inaugural Director of the Center for Island Climate Adaptation and Policy (ICAP). As the Director of ICAP, she led projects to address climate change policy and planning for island communities globally. She directed the completion of several adaptation related policy documents, outreach and education programs, and decision-maker support efforts for Hawai‘i and other Pacific Island nations.

Professor Burkett attended Williams College and Exeter College, Oxford University, and received her law degree from Boalt Hall School of Law at the University of California, Berkeley. She served as a law clerk for The Honorable Susan Illston of the United States District Court, Northern District of California. She was a White House intern and an Omidyar Fellow. She serves on the boards of Global Greengrants Fund and Kanu Hawai?i. Prior to her appointment at the University of Hawai‘i, Professor Burkett taught at the University of Colorado Law School.

Maxine Burkett

William S. Richardson School of Law

2515 Dole Street, Honolulu HI 96822

808.956.2865

email

website

SSRN

Daniel A. Farber is the Sho Sato Professor of Law and Director of the California Center for Law, Energy and the Environment at the University of California, Berkeley School of Law.

Professor Farber’s expertise is in the area of Cost-Benefit Analysis, Climate Change, and Constitutional Law.

Professor Farber has served on the Board of Directors for the Minnesota Civil Liberties Union, as a Law Clerk for Justice John Paul Stevens, United States Supreme Court, as a Law Clerk for Judge Philip W. Tone, United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit, and on the Litigation Committee, AAUP; AAUP Special Committee on Confidentiality in Tenure Review. Professor Farber was also an Associate at the firm Sidley & Austin (Washington DC).

Daniel Farber has written several books on environmental law, including Disasters and the Law, (Aspen Publishers, 2006, with Jim Chen), Eco-Pragmatism: Making Sensible Environmental Decisions in an Uncertain World (University of Chicago Press, 1999), Environmental Law in a Nutshell (West Pub. Co., 1st ed. 1983, 2d ed. 1988; 3d ed. 1992; Japanese translation, 1992; 4th ed. 1995; 5th ed. 2000 with R. Findley), and Environmental Law Cases and Materials (West Pub. Co., 1st ed. 1981, 2d ed. 1985, 3d ed. 1991, 4th ed. 1995, 5th ed. 1999; with 1983, 1988, 1993, and 1997 Supplements; Teacher's Manuals 1992 , 1995 and 1999) with R. Findley, 6th ed. 2003 with R. Findley and J. Freeman; 7th ed. 2006 with J. Freeman and A. Carlson.  His recent book publications include Public Choice and Public Law (Economic Approaches to Law), Elgar 2007, and Retained by the People: The ‘Silent’ Ninth Amendment and the Constitutional Rights Americans Don’t Know They Have, Basic Books, 2007, as well as a number of book chapters on constitutional law and judicial decision-making. Professor Farber’s recent articles include Justice Stevens, Habeas Jurisdiction, and the War on Terror, in the U.C. Davis Law Review 2010, Rethinking the Role of Cost-Benefit Analysis in the University of Chicago Law Review 2009, and Adaptation Planning and Climate Impact Assessments: Learning from NEPA’s Flaws, in the Environmental Law Reporter, among many others from a wide range of legal topics.).

Daniel Farber
University of California at Berkeley
Berkeley CA
510.642.0340
email
website

Victor B. Flatt is the Dwight Olds Chair in Law and is the Faculty Co-Director of the Environment, Energy, and Natural Resources (EENR) Center at the University of Houston Law Center. He also holds an appointment as a Distinguished Scholar of Carbon Markets at the University of Houston’s Gutierrez Energy Management Institute.

Professor Flatt is a recognized expert on environmental law, climate law, and energy law, and the intersection of these areas. Since 2019, he has created and taught the first law school courses in the country concerning how law relates to sustainability planning and ESG policies in corporations, offering the courses at UHLC, Vermont Law School, and the University of Utah Law School.

His research focuses on environmental legislation and enforcement, with particular expertise in the Clean Air Act, NEPA, and Climate. He is co-author of a popular environmental law casebook, and has authored more than 50 law review articles, which have appeared in journals such as the Notre Dame Law Review, Ecology Law Quarterly, The Ohio State Law Journal, Washington Law Review, Houston Law Review, and the Carolina Law Review. Seven of his articles have been recognized as finalists or winner of the best environmental law review article of the year, and one was recognized by Vanderbilt University Law School and the Environmental Law Institute as one of the three best environmental articles of 2010, leading to a seminar and panel on the article in a congressional staff briefing.

He has been a Visiting Law Professor at the University of Georgia Law School, the University of Washington Law School, and Seattle University School of Law. He has been honored as a Distinguished Environmental Scholar in Residence at Vermont Law School, Pace Law School (Elisabeth Haub Distinguished Scholar), and Widener University Delaware Law School. He was previously the inaugural O’Quinn Chair in Environmental Law at UHLC from 2002-2009. Before his return to UHLC in 2017, Professor Flatt was the inaugural Taft Distinguished Professor in Environmental Law and the Director of the Center for Climate, Energy, Environment, and Economics (CE3) at UNC Chapel Hill School of Law.

Professor Flatt has served on the AALS committees on Natural Resources and Environmental Law and was chair of the AALS Teaching Methods Section. He has served on many other board and committees in his career, including the national board of Lambda Legal and the Law School Admission Council’s Gay and Lesbian Interests section.

Professor Flatt received his B.A. in Chemistry and Math from Vanderbilt University where he was a Harold Stirling Vanderbilt Scholar, and his J.D. from Northwestern University, where he was a John Henry Wigmore Scholar. After graduating from Northwestern, Professor Flatt clerked for the Honorable Danny J. Boggs of the United States Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals.

Victor Flatt
University of Houston Law Center
4604 Calhoun Road
Houston, TX 77204-6060
713-743-2100
email
website
SSRN

David Flores, J.D., is a CPR Senior Policy Analyst. He joined CPR in 2016 to work on climate adaptation policy and advocacy. Before joining CPR, Mr. Flores spent eight years working for watershed nonprofit Blue Water Baltimore, where he managed water quality monitoring research, legal and regulatory advocacy, and Clean Water Act compliance monitoring and enforcement programming. 

Mr. Flores received his law degree from the University of Maryland in 2016, cum laude, with a certificate of concentration in environmental law, and his B.A. from Bard College in environmental science in 2008.

Contact Information:
202.747.0698 ext. 9
email

Alyson Flournoy is Professor of Law at the University of Florida Levin College of Law in Gainesville.

Professor Flournoy has taught various environmental law courses including the environmental law survey course, Advanced Environmental Law and Litigation (a simulation-based skills course emphasizing the pre-trial phase), Comparative Environmental Law, and seminars on environmental law, as well as Administrative Law and Property. She also collaborated with colleagues from Environmental Engineering and Medicine to develop and teach an inter-disciplinary course on Environmental Ethics. In addition to teaching in the United States, she has taught environmental law at Warsaw University as part of the Introduction to American Law Program, and has taught comparative environmental law to classes that included students from France and Latin America in UF Summer Study Abroad Programs in France and Costa Rica. She has supervised LL.M. research on environmental law topics by Comparative Law graduate students from Taiwan, South Korea and Brazil. 

Since 1990, Professor Flournoy has served as a Trustee of Florida Defenders of the Environment (FDE), one of Florida's longest established and best respected conservation groups. She served on the Executive Council of the Board from 1993 to 1995 and as President of the Board of Trustees from 1995 to 1998. FDE was founded in 1969 by citizens who recognized the potentially devastating effects of the proposed Cross Florida Barge Canal. FDE forged a coalition of volunteer specialists from science, economics and law who led the successful effort to halt the project. FDE's work led to the creation of the Marjorie Harris Carr Cross Florida Greenway on lands initially condemned for the Barge Canal. Since that time, FDE has continued its strategy of bringing reliable information to the attention of decision-makers and the public in its ongoing work to restore the Ocklawaha River and to protect Florida's other natural resources. Professor Flournoy also served on a University of Florida Sustainability Task Force charged by President Charles Young to make recommendations on how to make the University of Florida a leader in sustainability. She chaired the effort to create the Environmental and Land Use Law Program and has served as its Director since its inception in 1999.

Professor Flournoy began her legal career in 1983 as a law clerk to Chief Justice Robert Wilentz of the New Jersey Supreme Court. Following her clerkship, she practiced with the firm of Covington and Burling in Washington, D.C., specializing in environmental law. Her work included matters under the Clean Air and Clean Water Acts, the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act (Superfund), the Toxic Substances Control Act and the National Environmental Policy Act. She also spent six months through the firm's pro bono program working in a Neighborhood Legal Services Program office in Washington, where she handled a variety of housing, benefits and other cases on behalf of indigent clients.

Professor Flournoy's scholarship focuses on environmental ethics, decision-making processes under environmental and natural resource laws, and on the intersection of science and law. She has addressed these themes in writings about endangered species and forest management, wetlands conservation and restoration, and regulation of toxic substances. Her most recent work focuses on the importance of identifying the values that are embedded in the nation's environmental laws and policies.

Professor Flournoy is a member of the Executive Committee of the Environmental Law Section of the American Association of Law Schools. She also serves as an Advisor to the Natural Resources Leadership Institute, an organization founded to help rising leaders develop the skills to help build consensus on contentious environmental issues.

Alyson Flournoy
University of Florida
Levin College of Law
Gainesville, FL 
352.273.0945
email
website

Alice Kaswan is a Professor at the University of San Francisco School of Law.

Professor Kaswan received her J.D., cum laude, from Harvard Law School, and a B.S., with highest honors, in Conservation and Resource Studies from the University of California, Berkeley. After law school, she clerked for the Hon. Marie L. Garibaldi on the New Jersey Supreme Court. She then practiced land use and environmental law with Berle, Kass, & Case, a boutique environmental and land use law firm in New York City, and environmental law with Morgan, Lewis, & Bockius’ New York City office. She taught at Catholic University School of Law from 1995 until 1999, and joined the USF faculty in 1999. At USF, she teaches Environmental Law, Administrative Law, International Environmental Law, and Property. 

Professor Kaswan’s recent scholarship has focused on the federalism and environmental justice implications of domestic climate change policy. Earlier work explored theories of environmental justice and the relationship between environmental laws and the pursuit of environmental justice.

Alice Kaswan
University of San Francisco School of Law
415.422.5053
email
website
SSRN

Christine A. Klein is the Cone, Wagner, Nugent, Hazouri & Roth Professor, University Term Professor, and Director, LL.M. Program in Environmental & Land Use Law at the University of Florida, Levin College of Law, Gainesville.

Professor Klein has taught Environmental Law, Land Use Law, Natural Resources Law, Property, Water Law, and Wetlands Law. In addition, she is the coordinator of the Environmental Capstone Colloquium, a course required of all students in the Environmental and Land Use Law Certificate Program.

During her early years of legal practice, Professor Klein worked as legal counsel for Colorado's instream flow program. She has continued to write on the topic of water law and stream protection, and her work has been cited in support of the legality of instream flows by the states of Arizona, New Mexico, and Montana. Her subsequent moves to Michigan and Florida have allowed her to develop a national perspective on state water law regimes. She lectures widely on the topic, providing public education and professional training for organizations such as the U.S. Forest Service, the American Water Works Association, the Conference of Appellate Staff Attorneys, the Askew Institute (Florida), Women for Wise Growth (Florida), the Institute for Trade in the Americas (Michigan State University), the Institute for Public Policy and Social Research (Michigan State University), the Michigan Department of Environmental Quality, and the Michigan Environmental Health Association.

Professor Klein began her legal career as a law clerk to Judge Richard P. Matsch, District of Colorado. She then worked in the Office of the Colorado Attorney General, Natural Resources Section, where she specialized in water rights litigation and instream flow protection. After obtaining her LL.M. degree in law from Columbia University, she taught for eight years at Michigan State University College of Law, where she served as chair of the law college's program in Environmental and Natural Resources Law. She has also worked as a visiting professor at the University of Denver College of Law and as a Visiting Fellow at the University of Colorado School of Law (Natural Resources Law Center). She joined the faculty of the University of Florida in 2003.

Professor Klein's scholarship focuses on topics at the intersection of natural resources law and other legal disciplines including constitutional law, property law, and land use law. She also writes broadly in the area of water law.

Christine Klein
University of Florida Levin College of Law
Gainesville, FL 32611
352.273.0964
email
website
SSRN

Joel A. Mintz is a Professor Emeritus of Law and C. William Trout Senior Fellow in Public Interest Law at Nova Southeastern University Law Center in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. 

For more than 30 years, Professor Mintz has taught a variety of substantive and clinical environmental law courses, including offerings on the federal law of pollution control, comparative environmental law, environmental aspects of land use planning, and other subjects. He has written extensively on environmental enforcement, the Superfund program, growth management, sustainable development, and certain international environmental agreements.

Professor Mintz co-founded Nova Southeastern Law Center's in-house Environmental and Land Use Law Clinic, which provides representation to environmental citizens groups and neighborhood organizations in matters that concern implementation of the Florida Growth Management Act and protection of the Everglades and the Florida Keys. He has testified as a legal expert witness in judicial and administrative proceedings, and has given numerous presentations on environmental topics at gatherings of professional and trade associations and on radio and television public affairs broadcasts.

Professor Mintz serves on the board of directors of the Everglades Law Center, Inc., a not-for-profit environmental public interest law firm based in South Florida. He chairs that firm's Litigation Screening Committee.

Mintz is an elected member of the Environmental Law Commission of the International Union for the Conservation of Nature and of the International Council on Environmental Law, and he is a member of the Environmental Law Institute, the American Society of Writers on Legal Subjects, and other professional, environmental, bar and civic organizations. He is a member of the executive committee of the Section on State and Local Government Law of the Association of American Law Schools, whose Section newsletter he has edited annually since 1991. He has also served on the Committee on Source Removal of Contaminants in the Subsurface of the National Academy of Sciences/National Research Council.

In the early and mid-1970's, on a pro-bono basis, Professor Mintz lobbied successfully for the passage of the federal Surface Mining Control and Reclamation Act. In recognition of those voluntary efforts, President Carter invited him to attend the White House ceremony at which that statute was formally signed into law.

Prior to becoming a professor at Nova Southeastern, Professor Mintz worked for six years as an enforcement attorney and supervisory attorney with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency in Chicago and Washington, D.C. He handled or supervised numerous complex cases involving air, water, and hazardous waste/groundwater pollution from such varied industries as iron and steel, electric utilities, petroleum, pulp and paper, portland cement, and rubber manufacturing. Mintz was the lead attorney on the first EPA criminal contempt case brought in a U.S. District Court to redress a knowing violation of a signed Consent Decree; and he served as a Special Assistant U.S. Attorney in the Eastern District of Wisconsin with respect to a precedent-setting Grand Jury investigation into criminal violations of the Clean Water Act. In recognition of his EPA enforcement work, he received EPA's Special Service Award as well as its Bronze Medal for Commendable Service. 

Professor Mintz also worked (more briefly) as a law clerk with both the Natural Resources Defense Council and the Public Education Association, and as an editor for West Publishing Company (now West Group, Inc.) in New York.

Professor Mintz has published extensively in the fields of environmental law and state and local taxation and finance. He authored a critically acclaimed history of EPA's enforcement programs, Enforcement at the EPA: High Stakes and Hard Choices (University of Texas Press, 1995), and a well received treatise on the potential liabilities of subnational governments under federal environmental laws, State and Local Government Environmental Liability (West Group, Inc., 1994), which he has updated on an annual basis.Mintz also co-authored an introductory casebook on environmental law (published in 2000 by Lexis-Nexis, Inc.), Environmental Enforcement: Cases and Materials, (with CPR Member Scholar Clifford Rechtschaffen and Robert Kuehn, Carolina Academic Press, 2007), and State and Local Taxation and Finance in a Nutshell, 3rd Edition (with Gelfand and Salsich, West Group, Inc., 2007).

In addition, Professor Mintz has written several book chapters and contributions, and he is the author of numerous law review articles that have appeared in journals published at Harvard, Yale, Virginia, Georgetown, Columbia and other well known law schools. His journal articles have repeatedly been considered to be among the 30 best articles of the year in the environmental law field by peer reviewers.

Professor Mintz has consulted, on an informal basis, with officials of the EPA with regard to environmental issues and policy matters. He has peer reviewed the written work of other academics in several disciplines. His name appears on a list, compiled by the U.S. Department of State, of potential speakers at U.S. embassies and consulates with respect to environmental issues.

Joel Mintz
Nova Southeastern University Shepard Broad Law Center
Ft. Lauderdale, FL
954.262.6160
email
website

Sidney A. Shapiro holds the Fletcher Chair in Administrative Law at the Wake Forest University School of Law and is the Associate Dean for Research and Development. He is a member of the board of directors of the Center for Progressive Reform.

Professor Shapiro has taught and written in the areas of Administrative Law, Regulatory Law and Policy, Environmental Policy, and Occupational Safety and Health Law for 25 years.

While in academia, Shapiro has served as a consultant to the Administrative Conference of the United States (ACUS), the Office of Technology Assessment of the U.S. Congress (OTA), and the U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA). With Professor Thomas O. McGarity, Professor Shapiro designed and helped initiate a rulemaking prioritization process for OSHA rulemaking during the early 1990s. As a consultant to OTA, Professor Shapiro assessed various regulatory tools or options that agencies can use to implement regulation. As a consultant to ACUS, Professor Shapiro studied the efficacy of the regulatory process at EPA (noise control), OSHA, and the Food and Drug Administration (FDA).

Professor Shapiro began his legal career as a trial attorney in the Bureau of Competition of the Federal Trade Commission and later worked as the Deputy Legal Counsel, Secretary's Review Panel on New Drug Regulation at the Department of Health, Education and Welfare.

Professor Shapiro has published widely in the areas of regulatory law and policy. He co-authored The People’s Agents and the Battle to Protect the American Public: Special Interests, Government, and Threats to Health, Safety, and the Environment, with CPR President, Rena Steinzor. This book reviewed years of government actions and inactions leading to the decline of the five protector agencies. His book, Risk Regulation at Risk: Restoring a Pragmatic Approach, analyzes health and safety and environmental protection laws and policy, and argues for a pragmatic approach to policy in these areas instead of using economic analysis to set regulatory goals. Workers at Risk, co-authored with Thomas O. McGarity, describes rulemaking, implementation and enforcement in the Occupational Safety and Health Administration from its inception in 1970 through 1990. The book analyzes OSHA's strengths and weaknesses and makes many recommendations for improving standard-setting and enforcement. Shapiro's casebook, Administrative Law and Procedure: A Problem Approach, co-authored with William Funk and Russell Weaver, is used in administrative law courses at law schools throughout the country. His casebook, Regulatory Policy and Law, is the first of its kind, and is used to train lawyers to evaluate and advocate for public policy.

Professor Shapiro has published dozens of articles on regulatory policy, health and safety laws, environmental law and administrative law in prominent law reviews, such as the Harvard Law Review, Duke Law Journal and the Wake Forest Law Review, as well as in specialty journals, such as the Administrative Law Review and the Ecology Law Quarterly.

Professor Shapiro has been an active participant in efforts to improve health, safety and environmental quality in the United States. He has testified before congressional committees on administrative law and occupational safety and health issues. He has worked with various public interest groups in advisory and support capacities, including Public Citizen Global Trade Watch, Public Citizen Congress Watch, and OMB Watch. 

Sidney Shapiro
Wake Forest University School of Law
Winston-Salem, NC
336.758.7320
email
website

Karen Sokol is Associate Professor of Law at the Loyola University College of Law in New Orleans. 

Karen Sokol joined the Loyola University New Orleans College of Law faculty in 2009. Her teaching and research interests include environmental law, torts, products liability, and law and philosophy. Her current scholarship focuses on legal controls on marketing of dangerous products, climate change resilience, particularly for vulnerable countries such as Cuba and India, and, most recently, on the potential for forging more robust environmental and public health protections by incorporating Indian philosophy into Western jurisprudence, law, and policy. She will spend the spring of 2018 researching in India, supported by a Fulbright Award.

Professor Sokol graduated from Yale Law School, where she served as Articles Editor for the Yale Human Rights and Development Law Journal and was a member of the Allard K. Lowenstein International Human Rights Clinic. After law school, she clerked for Judge Carolyn Dineen King of the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit and worked as an associate in the appellate section of Vinson & Elkins, LLP. She then worked as a policy analyst for the Center for Progressive Reform, writing a number of papers and articles on environmental and public health issues, with a focus on government transparency and corporate accountability. The year before coming to Loyola, she was a fellow at Georgetown University Law Center’s O’Neill Institute for National and Global Health Law. She is admitted to practice in the state of Texas and the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit. 

Karen Sokol
Loyola University New Orleans College of Law
New Orleans, Louisiana
504.861.5593
email
website
SSRN
Twitter

Joseph P. Tomain is Dean Emeritus and the Wilbert & Helen Ziegler Professor of Law at the University of Cincinnati College of Law.

Dean Tomain's research and teaching interests have focused on Energy Law, Land Use, Government Regulation, and Contracts. Dean Tomain received his J.D. from George Washington University National Law Center and his A.B. from the University of Notre Dame.

Most of Dean Tomain's working experience has been in the academy. He has had regulatory experience in practice and stays involved in energy and environmental matters as a member of the advisory board of the Institute of Environmental Studies at Miami University in Oxford, Ohio. Additionally, his work in the field of energy comes through publications, the occasional commentary, and news editorials. He is also a member of the Multidisciplinary Council of Tennessee, which is examining issues surrounding science in the courtroom.

After completing law school, Dean Tomain worked in the private sector for a New Jersey law firm handling general litigation matters. He began his law teaching career in 1976 at Drake University Law School and joined the University of Cincinnati in 1983. In 1986-87 he served as Visiting Professor at the University of Texas School of Law. He has either planned programs or presented papers for the Association of American Law Schools; American Bar Association; American Judicature Society; American Legal Studies Association; American Planning Association; Canadian Institute on Resources Law; Cincinnati Bar Association; Conference of Chief Justices; Federal Bar Association; Hofstra University School of Law; Iowa Planning Association; North American Conference on Peacemaking and Conflict Resolution; Ohio CLE Institute; Ohio Planning Association; Rocky Mountain Mineral Law Institute; University of Cincinnati (various colleges); University of Kansas School of Law; United States Sixth Circuit Conference; and, continuing legal education programs and bar review courses. Dean Tomain was elected a Visiting Fellow at Harris Manchester College, Oxford University, is the recipient of an NEH summer fellowship award, and served as a Fulbright Senior Specialist in Law in Phnom Penh, Cambodia.

Dean Tomain's publications include books entitled Creon’s Ghost: Law, Justice, and the Humanities, Energy Law and Policy for the 21st Century, Regulatory Law & Policy, Energy Law and Policy, Nuclear Power Transformation, Energy Law in a Nutshell, and Energy Decision Making. He has also written numerous articles and delivered papers on the subjects of energy law and government regulation.

In addition to his administrative duties, teaching, and scholarship, Dean Tomain serves on a number of professional and civic organizations. Since 2000 he has served as Vice Chair of the Year in Review Committee of the American Bar Association Section of Environment, Energy, and Resources Committee on Energy Industry Restructuring, Finance, Mergers, and Acquisitions. He is Chair of the Board of the KnowledgeWorks Foundation. He serves on the American Bar Association's Standing Committee on Judicial Independence Commission on State Judicial Selection Standards. He is also a member of the Board of the Greater Cincinnati Foundation, a delegate to the Ohio State Bar Association, a member of the Board of the Ohio State Bar Foundation, a member of the Board of the Ohio Legal Assistance Foundation, and has been elected a Fellow of the American Bar Foundation. 

Joseph Tomain
University of Cincinnati College of Law
Cincinnati, OH
513.556.0067
email
website

Katie Tracy, J.D., was a Senior Policy Analyst focused on workers’ rights policy. Her previous experience included working for more than two years as a regulatory policy analyst at the Center for Effective Government, where she advocated for strong regulations to protect health, safety, and the environment. She also produced a report examining OSHA’s whistleblower protection program and proposing model state legislation to protect workers from retaliation.

Robert R.M. Verchick holds the Gauthier ~ St. Martin Eminent Scholar Chair in Environmental Law at Loyola University New Orleans, is the Faculty Director of the Center for Environmental Law at Loyola, and is a Senior Fellow in Disaster Resilience Leadership, Tulane University. He is the President of the Center for Progressive Reform.

Verchick is an expert in climate change law, disaster law, and environmental regulation. In 2009 and 2010, he served in the Obama administration as Deputy Associate Administrator for Policy at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. In that role he helped develop climate adaptation policy for the EPA and served on President Obama's Interagency Climate Change Adaptation Task Force. In the fall of 2012, he researched climate adaptation policies in India as a Visiting Scholar at the Centre for Policy Research in New Delhi, supported by a Fulbright Award.

His work has appeared in many venues, including the California Law Review, the Southern California Law Review, and the environmental law journals at Harvard, Stanford, and Berkeley. He is an author of three books, including the award-winning, Facing Catastrophe: Environmental Action for a Post-Katrina World (Harvard University Press 2010). Professor Verchick has taught as a visitor at several schools, including Peking University (China) and Aarhus University (Denmark), and has received several teaching awards. He has lectured across the United States, Europe, and Asia

Robert R.M. Verchick
Loyola University New Orleans
New Orleans, LA
504.861.5472
email
website
Twitter