Four leading environmental scholars will headline the inaugural University of Florida Levin College of Law Environmental & Land Use Law Speaker Series in spring 2005.

     The sessions will feature academicians from the colleges of law of Arizona State, Texas and Duke universities, and the head of the Department of Natural Resources at Cornell University. Students in the College’s ELUL Certificate program and ELUL faculty will participate in seminars led by the visiting faculty. This will provide the Certificate students with an experience akin to a graduate seminar.

     The Speaker Series is the newest in a series of initiatives by the law school for an environmental law program that was recognized in 2004 as one of the nation’s top 20 such curricula – and in the top 10 of public law schools – by U.S. News & World Report in a ranking by law school faculty and deans throughout the U.S.

     “Our environmental and land use law program since its inception in 1999 has gained national respect while expanding and strengthening through a series of initiatives,” said law Dean Robert Jerry. “Three outstanding faculty hires, summer externships and study abroad for credits, the award-winning Conservation Clinic, 11 years of the student-organized Public Interest Environmental Conference, an ELULP Certificate Program for law graduates wanting to specialize, and now a national speaker series are examples of the innovations.”
Sponsors making the sessions possible are Hopping Green & Sams P.A., Tallahassee; Lewis Longman & Walker P.A., West Palm Beach; and the Florida Bar Environmental & Land Use Law Section.

The professors to be featured are:

• Rebecca Tsosie, Arizona State University / March 11, 2005
Specializes in Indian law, property, bioethics and critical race theory, and is the executive director of the ASU Indian Legal Program and its Lincoln Professor of Native American Law & Ethics. She is co-author of a federal Indian law casebook, and serves as a Supreme Court Justice for Fort McDowell Yavapai Nation.

• Barbara Knuth, Cornell University / March 18, 2005
Chairs the university’s Department of Natural Resources and is co-leader of Human Dimensions Research. She has written extensively on environmental and natural resources planning, management and policy processes.

• Wendy E. Wagner, University of Texas / March 25, 2005
Leading authority on use of science by environmental policymakers; one of seven attorneys on the American Bar Association’s National Conference of Lawyers & Scientists. Worked for U.S. Departments of Justice (Environmental and Natural Resources Division) and Agriculture (Office of General Counsel).

• James Salzman, Duke University / April 8, 2005
An editor of Environmental Impact Assessment, and principal liaison for the Trade & Environment Policy Advisory Committee. Visiting professor at Yale, Harvard, Stanford, Macquarie (Australia) and Lund (Sweden) universities; 2002-03 McMaster Fellow and Fulbright Senior Scholar in Australia; 2004 fellow at Bren School of Environmental Science & Management, University of California-Santa Barbara.

     Some limited seating will be available at the free engagements. Additional information is available by contacting ELULP Program Assistant Marla Wolfe, 352.392.3427 / elulp@law.ufl.edu.
Credit for ELULP’s success and growing national recognition goes to the 13 full-time law school faculty, including five from the College’s Center for Governmental Responsibility, five adjunct professors from throughout Florida who are responsible for the program’s curriculum, and the volunteer ELULP advisory board composed of leading environmental attorneys and experts from throughout the state and the country.