Hi everyone,

I'm a Peruvian lawyer with almost 10 years of public & administrative law experience seeking to study an LLM in environmental law.

I've been hearing about doing it in the US vs Europe and so far seems that US have better universities for that particular LLM.
I would really appreciate it if someone studying or already graduated from an LLM in environmental law could write something about their universities and if they recommend it over other options and why.

Thanks,

Luis Felipe.

Hi Luis Felipe,

I've been practicing environmental law in the U.S. for about five years. I think most here would agree that the top two schools for environmental law are Vermont Law School and Lewis & Clark Law School. Both have LLM programs.

This article may also answer some of your questions: http://www.llm-guide.com/article/8/the-llm-in-environmental-law

Hi Luis Felipe,

I've been practicing environmental law in the U.S. for about five years. I think most here would agree that the top two schools for environmental law are Vermont Law School and Lewis & Clark Law School. Both have LLM programs.

Recommending a book is tough for several reasons. First, are you focusing on international law, Peru law, or U.S. law? Second, the field is so broad (air, water, waste, energy, climate change, etc etc) that no single book could do more than skim the surface. And finally, the field is changing every day, so any book on the subject would be out of date. In light of all that, I'd just recommend keeping up with current developments in environmental law as best you can, and if at all possible getting some practical experience with it. One thing you have in your favor is that administrative law is very closely related to environmental law, and you have lots of experience there. Good luck!

Engineer, I teach a course for international LL.M. students who are entering Lewis & Clark Law School for the environmental law program, and I recommend this book as general background for any international lawyer considering coming to law school in the United States:

Legal Reasoning, Research, and Writing for International Graduate Students by Nadia E. Nedzel (Paperback - Feb. 29, 2008)

Regarding general reading about environmental law, Wikipedia actually does a pretty good job of covering the basic ideas:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Environmental_law

What's nice about the wiki is that it has links to articles on all the major environmental law statutes, and those articles in turn have links to the statutes themselves.The section on legal education is inaccurate and incomplete, but that's what we have LLM Guide for. :^)

Lin Harmon, J.D.
Associate Director, Environmental & Natural Resources Law Program
Director, International LL.M. & Visitor Programs
Lewis & Clark Law School
10015 SW Terwilliger Blvd.
Portland, OR 97219
(503) 768-6882
http://law.lclark.edu/programs/environmental_and_natural_resources_law/