ELI Skills Workshop in Public Interest Environmental Law

ELI was pleased to hold the second year of its highly acclaimed Skills Workshop in Public Interest Environmental Law. The workshop is open to staff of public interest organizations with a local, regional, national, and international focus and that address environmental protection, conservation of natural resources, and environmental justice.

This workshop is specifically dedicated to skills training for junior attorneys and policy professionals who work for public interest organizations. ELI draws from more than 20 years of experience working with senior practitioners to distill the substance and practice of environmental law into training programs for new environmental attorneys.

The workshop provides approximately 10 hours of Continuing Legal Education for a discounted fee. See the 2011 registration page for more details.

This is a dynamic workshop with a significant amount of peer-to-peer interaction. We create mechanisms for promoting dialogue among participants, and significant time is devoted on both days to networking and relationship building. After the workshop, ELI facilitates a listserv for attendees so they can stay in touch after the course, share experiences, and seek advice about practice issues.

Participants learn to:

• practice skills necessary to use natural resource and environmental protection law and policy to advance conservation goals,
• improve understanding of key legal issues within the environmental community, and
• foster cooperation among environmental groups and professionals working in diverse geographical regions and substantive focuses, including environmental justice.

The faculty is drawn from those in public interest groups who practice law and policy every day, professors from prominent law schools across the country, and experts from government agencies such as EPA, so that participants are exposed to a variety of perspectives.

Attendees in 2011 included staff from: Earthjustice, Defenders of Wildlife, Environmental Integrity Project, Southern Environmental Law Center, New York City Environmental Law Leadership Institute, American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy, and Consortium for Ocean Leadership.

Here is what people said about our first workshop, in April, 2011:

"Absolutely fantastic. This course discussed so many things that I actually will go implement at work. Extraordinarily helpful. . .and so great to connect with young attorneys."

"I thought the long sessions were great. More often than not CLEs are short and you don't get the opportunity to ask so many questions. And the feedback from the questions might arguably be the best information given at the seminar. Great job."

"Participants were excellent! Great networking and collaboration experience.". . . . ."Really, really valuable for meeting people."

"Good mix of public servants, educators, and government attorneys. This helped bring a nice dialogue and insight into various aspects of environmental lawyering."

"The course was really interesting and covered a good range of practical work that NGOs do.". . . . ."I really appreciated the practical advice and real examples and discussions about commenting on rulemaking and permits. . .and litigation strategies."

"Everything was extraordinarily organized and ran
smoothly. . .Good venue!. . .Food, facilities, and atmosphere were great. Group size was also great."

2011 Agenda and Faculty

2011 Registration information.

This workshop was made possible by a grant from the Bauman Family Foundation.

STEERING COMMITTEE

Adrienne Bloch, Staff Attorney, Communities for a Better Environment

J. Peter Byrne, Professor of Law and Faculty Director, Georgetown Environmental Law and Policy Institute

Kristen Genovese, Staff Attorney, Center for International Environmental Law

Doug Honnold, Managing Attorney, Earthjustice

Brad Klein, Staff Attorney, Environmental Law and Policy Center

John Suttles, Senior Attorney, Southern Environmental Law Center

Ray Vaughan, Executive Director, WildLaw