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Presented by the American Bar Association’s Law Student Division, the ABA Law Student Podcast covers issues that affect law students, law schools, and recent grads. From finals and graduation to the bar exam and finding a job, this show is your trusted resource for the next big step.
Todd Berger (00:00):
There's no shortage of ways for lawyers to impact the world around them, but perhaps none. As tangible as environmental law, it affects the fundamental parts of our daily lives from the air we breathe to the water we drink while intersecting with everything from corporate compliance, energy production, and real estate development. On today's episode, we look beyond the headlines to explore the hidden rewards of the field, like the intellectual challenge of collaborating with scientists and the tangible satisfaction of seeing a project like the World Trade Center rise from the ground. We discussed why the law remains our most important tool for determining the health of our planet and how we can wield it. This is the ABA Law student podcast.
Eve Albert (00:57):
Hi Nayeli. It's so good to see you. How are you doing today?
Nayeli Diaz (01:00):
Hi, Eve. It's always lovely to see your face. I'm doing pretty well today.
Eve Albert (01:04):
I'm sure you've noticed no, Todd today, so I'm going to be steering the ship, so to speak. So who are we talking to today? Today
Nayeli Diaz (01:13):
We're talking to Professor Michael Gerrard at Columbia Law School. He is one of the foremost scholars for environmental law. He worked at Arnold and Porter for many years in New York in the environmental law division and until he moved to Columbia Law School faculty in 2009 where he's been working since then. He also founded the Saben Center for Climate Change Law, which does a lot of really amazing groundbreaking work in environmental law. So I was really excited to get his take on this field today.
Eve Albert (01:46):
What brought you to this topic? Do you have a specific reason why you wanted to address environmental law?
Nayeli Diaz (01:53):
Yeah, my family are mostly agricultural engineers and so environmental law was something when I went into law school that kind of felt like a natural expansion of that. But it was one of those things also where when I got in I thought there were these barriers to entry and maybe I put a little bit too many barriers on myself because I didn't know where to start. And so I am really glad that he got to kind of provide a lot of information for any law students out there who might also be interested in it but not really know where to start or be overwhelmed with the options. I think this will be really helpful.
Eve Albert (02:25):
Yeah, absolutely. Well, I'm excited to hear all about it. Let's just get into the interview.
Nayeli Diaz (02:33):
Good afternoon, professor. How are you doing today?
Michael Gerrard (02:35):
Great. Good to be with you.
Nayeli Diaz (02:37):
Thank you very much. We're happy to have you. So I want to start off by telling everybody a little bit about your career. You've done a lot of wonderful things. Would you tell us a little about that?
Michael Gerrard (02:45):
Sure. So I grew up in Charleston, West Virginia, which is a town dominated by the chemical industry, and that's what got me interested in the environment in the first place in college, I wrote my senior thesis on the politics of air pollution and then I went to work after graduation for an environmental group in the city and decided I wanted to become an environmental lawyer. So I entered law school at NYU in 1975. While I was in law school, I was active in environmental issues, got to know some lawyers who were working on a pro bono case that I was helping with. And when I graduated, I went to work for them. It was a little environmental boutique in New York City. I had not envisioned that I would go into private practice. I had thought that I would go to NRDC or EDF or someplace like that, but this was 1978.
(03:36):
They were very small organizations then and they didn't have any entry level jobs. So I joined this environmental boutique firm where I ended up staying for 15 years. It broke up in 1994 and I moved laterally to a big law firm, Arnold and Porter, and became first the partner in charge of the environmental practice in New York and then the practice, the overall New York office in 2009. So I was there for 15 years at Arnold and Porter. In 2009 I moved to Columbia Law School to become a professor of teaching environmental law and energy law, and I founded and am faculty director of the Saban Center for Climate Change Law. So that's what I've been doing since 2009.
Nayeli Diaz (04:21):
Sounds like you certainly knew from the very start that you were going to be an environmental attorney. Do you find that that is the case for a lot of people in the field, that it seems like a lot of people have that passion from it for the beginning, or do you think it's sort of something that is easier to migrate into?
Michael Gerrard (04:38):
I've never done a study of that, but I'd say maybe it's 50 50 of people who were interested in it from the start. And I certainly have students now who now know while they're law students that they wanted the environmental lawyers, but others sort of happen into it. Maybe they are working in a law firm and are assigned to an environmental case and they really like it and they want to stay with that. That's another pathway we sometimes see.
Nayeli Diaz (05:02):
Do you have a favorite memory that comes to mind, whether it was while you were at the firm or now that you've been a professor or any of your work at the Saban Center?
Michael Gerrard (05:10):
So when I was in practice, I was retained by a little town in Westchester County, New York that was afraid that a proposed golf course development would contaminate their drinking water from the pesticide runoff. And the developer, that particular golf course was a New York City real estate developer named Donald Trump, and I was hired to try to oppose this golf course and we won using various environmental theories. And so I was happy to have done that. That was a fun
Nayeli Diaz (05:43):
Case. Well, that certainly, that sounds really, really fun.
Michael Gerrard (05:45):
I'll mention a couple of other very interesting cases After nine 11, the redevelopment of the World Trade Center site was a very challenging issue when I was retained by Larry Silverstein, who was the real estate guy who had a ground lease for the site. So I was very heavily involved in the environmental review and environmental permitting for the redevelopment of the World Trade Center site, which was quite an interesting and challenging project.
Nayeli Diaz (06:13):
Yeah. Speaking of the permitting is, do you find that a lot of the job is collaborative with the cities and the states that the issues are with? And you're talking about doing a lot of researching. So do you often employ experts to help you do that kinds of testing? How does that work
Michael Gerrard (06:32):
In doing permitting? If you're representing a project applicant, absolutely you want to work with the government agencies that are going to be issuing the permits. That kind of collaborative process is very important in doing environmental review. Environmental impact statements are usually written by consultants who are have technical teams, and we work with the consultants in environmental litigation. It's very common to have expert witnesses. So one of the joys of being an environmental lawyer is being able to spend a lot of time with actual scientists and engineers and talking to them and understanding what they do. And if it's a trial, I need to be able to understand it well enough to explain it to a judge or a jury. And so I need to develop enough of an understanding of what's going on to be able to do that.
Nayeli Diaz (07:23):
Do you think that having a science degree is something that is beneficial for environmental attorneys? Do you think it's something that most of them have or that you should have?
Michael Gerrard (07:33):
It's helpful but not essential. I don't have that, but I think what is essential is that you have to like science, even if you don't have the quantitative skills that you would need to actually be a scientist, you have to enjoy science because most of the cases do have a serious technical element to it. I would say a minority of environmental lawyers do have a serious technical background. Those who do find it useful, it's useful. So it's not essential, but it's useful.
Nayeli Diaz (08:04):
Right. So you're saying it's less, you have to really understand it, but be interested in learning it on the go.
Michael Gerrard (08:11):
There's so many different scientific disciplines. Nobody's going to be both a chemical engineer and a biologist and a hydrologist and so forth, so nobody's going to know at all. But as an environmental lawyer, you pick up a lot of this because these different things come up.
Nayeli Diaz (08:25):
I think that's good for law students to know because I know that's certainly something that I was told. I can remember it within my first month or two that people were telling me you had to have a science degree to get into it and you weren't going to know what was happening. And so it's good to know that, that you dont have to have that. You just have to have the hunger to learn.
Michael Gerrard (08:43):
That's right. Exactly.
Nayeli Diaz (08:45):
Have you found that, I mean, I'm sure there have been lots of changes over the years. What do you think is the biggest thing that has changed from when you first started to now?
Michael Gerrard (08:56):
So when I first started in the late 1970s and through the eighties and into the nineties, most of the environmental practice that I saw was about pollution control, air pollution, water pollution, the environmental review process, and then the Superfund Law. The Comprehensive Environmental Response and Compensation Act was enacted in 1980, but it took several years for it really to take off. And then in the late 1980s, it became the subject of a great deal of litigation and compliance work because banks could be liable, at least theoretically, for the contamination of their borrowers. And it led to, it's really the growth of the due diligence industry. And so in private practice, a significant amount of work became and continues to be either making sure that sites you're involved in are not contaminated with hazardous waste or litigation about who pays for the cleanup. In the last seven or eight years, I would say that there's been an increasing focus on the energy transition on building wind and solar and transmission and everything else that goes along with that, and various legal issues both on the transactional side and the litigation side. So that has grown as a part of the practice.
Nayeli Diaz (10:22):
Do you think the anti-pollution work and the work around that is still there as you'd think it's just a little bit less and more the energy?
Michael Gerrard (10:31):
One important thing to understand is that all of the major US federal environmental statutes were enacted between 1970 and 1990, and none of them have been repealed. They're all still on the books. The regulations go up and down depending on the party in power, but there continues to be a great deal of environmental work notwithstanding what's happening in Washington.
Nayeli Diaz (10:55):
What have you found is the most rewarding part of the work for you over the years, and what do you think your former students tell you has been their most exciting or rewarding parts of the job for them?
Michael Gerrard (11:06):
Well, lawyers represent clients and try to solve client problems, and it was rewarding to be able to help this municipality in Westchester avoid the drinking water contamination. It was rewarding for my client in the World Trade Center case to see it actually happen and the buildings rise successfully. So when you're able to address client problems, that's rewarding. It's rewarding when you're on the environmental side to do things that reduce pollution or that prevent horrible projects from being built or otherwise help preserve the environment and help people not be exposed to hazardous chemicals. So all of that is rewarding. And then the day-to-day work, when you're working with your colleagues both inside your law office and with outside experts and so forth, that's also very rewarding.
Nayeli Diaz (12:01):
That does sound very rewarding. Do you find that you talk about your coworkers and your colleagues. Do you think there are shared values with everybody with this kind of work that maybe might be a little bit different in other types of law that tethers you together?
Michael Gerrard (12:15):
I think it depends on the work setting. I think for instance, in a big firm, if you're an environmental group, it may be that you are very much on the same page about a lot of things with your environmental colleagues, maybe not as much with some of the colleagues in other practice areas, maybe you are, but that will vary in environmental NGO. People are there because they are really committed to the environment. And I would say that everybody shares that commitment. In the center that I founded and run the Saban Center for Climate Change Law, we now have 17 full-time lawyers, and we're all here because we're dedicated to the fight against climate change. So there are some work settings that are like that. There are other work settings where environmental lawyer may be off on their own.
Nayeli Diaz (13:05):
You've spoken about a lot of the work that you've done in New York, obviously that's where you've been located. Do you find that environmental law has areas where there's more of it, like you just talked about in New York, maybe in California? Do you think there's a little bit of it everywhere across the country?
Michael Gerrard (13:21):
Well, there's a little bit of everywhere. Every state has an environmental agency and has environmental laws. I would say that the largest number of environmental lawyers is in dc both in the federal government and NGOs and other workplaces. There also tend to be concentrations of environmental lawyers in capital cities that may not be the biggest cities. So Albany, New York, Springfield, Illinois, Sacramento, California,
Nayeli Diaz (13:50):
Sacramento,
Michael Gerrard (13:52):
Our state capital, sorry, my family is from there. Good. As you know, it's the capital of California. And so there are a lot of lawyers including environmental lawyers in those cities as well as the biggest cities. We'll be right back.
Nayeli Diaz (14:13):
We've talked a little bit about environmental lawyers as a vague term. Are there more specific subgroups of environmental attorneys for students to be thinking about in terms of jobs? Say,
Michael Gerrard (14:24):
Most environmental lawyers cover the span of environmental law, but there are some who specialize. There are some who specialize just in the Clean Air Act or the Clean Water Act or the Superfund Law. So that certainly happens. Seldom do people enter the field as environmental lawyers saying, I'm going to be a Clean Air Act lawyer. But it sometimes emerges of that. And one common pathway for people to emerge as super specialists is they go to work for a government agency and they work on the Clean Air Act, let's say for several years to develop real expertise in that area. And they may stay in that area or they may go into private practice or a corporation and specialize in that particular subfield.
Nayeli Diaz (15:10):
Do you find that environmental law is something that is very deeply connected internationally? I know you've done a lot of work in other speaking in other countries, and it makes sense to me, right? The environment is not just something that affects us in the United States. It's all of us. We all share the same place. So do you find that there is a lot of collaboration across countries for this kind of work?
Michael Gerrard (15:36):
I would say that's limited. It depends on the kind of practice. But during the 30 years that I was in private practice, frankly, I didn't do much internationally. I did a little bit here and there, but for the most part, I was involved in matters that were in New York state or adjoining states, because most environmental work involves particular facilities or projects or locations or something like that. There are a few practices that are more international, and in the very big firms that often have offices around the world, you might get involved in that. Now as an academic, I do a lot of work on international issues and teach international environmental law issues, but in private practice, I would say that's the exception rather than the rule.
Nayeli Diaz (16:25):
That makes sense. When we were talking earlier about the different types of environmental lawyers, environmental law strikes me as one of those things, again, that is kind of, you might not think of it, but it is everywhere. It might not be at the forefront of people's mind when they're thinking about lawyers. But my father, for example, is an, he's a agricultural engineer. And so we would go to the job sites all the time, and I remember when I was little, once he told me about all these regulations for the job sites that you had to have a certain amount of water on hand. You had to have all these kinds of things that I wasn't thinking about, just pass all these tanks or whatever it was. And so I think that's something that's really interesting about this is that there are more options than just like you're saying, you can be a litigator, you can work on drafting on doing the word is escaping me, the people who are
Michael Gerrard (17:13):
Doing the transactions.
Nayeli Diaz (17:15):
Yes, people who want it transactional work. Yeah, there's room for both of it in this kind of work.
Michael Gerrard (17:20):
That's right. And I think in my practice I did both litigation and transactional work, although I did more litigation than I did transactional work. In private practice, I think it's more typical for people to be much more in one side than the other. It's hard to dabble as a litigator. If you want to be a litigator, you really need to be doing that intensely, and that'll affect the courses you take in law school and so forth. If you're mostly going to be doing transactional work, there are different courses that you'll be taking in law school, and I can get into that if you want. Let me also say that there are also some sort of environmentally adjacent areas of law. So there's water law, which is really sort of related, but different field, and that's much more active in the western states than in the eastern states. And just about every law school in the west has a water law course, and almost none in the east have a water law course. Another kind of law that is sort of adjacent is toxic short litigation suing on behalf of victims of pollution, which is another allied area of law, but it tends to be sort of a different bar.
Nayeli Diaz (18:35):
Yeah, my school has a water law course that I've heard from many people is really amazing. And so yeah, if we want to talk a little bit about some of the courses that you would recommend that students take or ones that even if you can find some specialized classes, but maybe some that are more general, that maybe all law schools might offer that you think transfers Well,
Michael Gerrard (18:58):
So I think everybody should take the basic corporations course. Corporations are so central to everything that even if you are not going to become a corporate lawyer in any way, it's very important to understand the basics of corporations. I think everybody ought to take the basic tax course, both so you can understand when you're filling out your own taxes. But the taxes are very important elements of many things. And the basic tax course that I took was the first time I was really exposed as a law student to the basics of interpreting statutes and regulations. Very similar to what happens in environmental law because environmental law is full of a lot of statutes and a lot of regulations. If you want to be a litigator, there are certain courses that every litigator should take. The federal courts evidence, some other sort of litigation oriented courses and people who want to do transactional work in addition to the basic corporation corporate law, of course, they should learn something about corporate finance and other transactional kinds of courses that you could take. Now you can try both and see what you like, and then if you go to work in private practice, you'll sometimes have to decide upfront which of those general buckets to go in. Not always different firms vary.
Nayeli Diaz (20:22):
That's really interesting. I wouldn't have thought about, you said tax law. I wouldn't have thought about that, but that does make a lot of sense, so that's for sure. Good advice. What would you say are some general misconceptions that law students have about the field of environmental law when they start out and you want to clear those misconceptions up?
Michael Gerrard (20:39):
I think a lot of people just have a sense that there is such a thing as environmental law and that there are a lot of people who practice at full-time throughout their careers. There's a lot of work to be done. At one time, some years ago, I was the chairman of the section of environment and energy resources of the American Bar Association, and we had about 10,000 members. They were in private practice, in government, in other organizations. So there, and not every environmental lawyer was a member. So there are a lot of environmental lawyers out there. There's a lot of work to be done, and a lot of people have had very happy careers for a long time doing that kind of work.
Nayeli Diaz (21:18):
So if you were talking to A one L, what would be your biggest advice to them? What would you emphasize them taking, whether it be clinics, law review courses, MO court, anything? What do you think is some of the most important things that they would be able to be a part of to start working on this?
Michael Gerrard (21:37):
Yeah, so at Columbia we have an environmental moo court. Pace Law School every year runs a national environmental mood court competition, and many law schools around the country participate in that. There are a couple more like that. I think those are good things to do. Clinics can be very helpful or externships except one thing I would say is don't load up so heavily with just clinics and externships that you don't have time to take the hardcore law courses. You really want to get the substantive knowledge and the law that you gain in those courses. So it's useful to do those non course things, but I wouldn't overdo it.
Nayeli Diaz (22:19):
That makes sense. Well, were you were talking about the ABAs environmental section that you chaired. Do you think there are, what in your opinion are some other resources that law students could get involved in whatever school they're at? Any general resources that you would recommend that they look into become part of that might help them to learn more or to become better connected in this field?
Michael Gerrard (22:42):
So many law schools have a student environmental law society, and that's good to get involved in more than 20 law schools, I think have an environmental journal. And what I found is it's big overlap in the people who certainly here are the people who take my courses and people are in the Student Environmental Law Society and people who are in the journal. I'll also mention there are some sort of websites and publications that are worth looking at. There's a blog called Legal Planet, which is put out jointly by UCLA and University of California Berkeley that's free. So Legal Planet is a terrific blog. The Saban Center for Climate Change Law, which I run has a blog that's also worth signing onto if you want to keep touch of things. They're also some free services. There's something called G Grist, G-R-I-S-T, which is a free sort of daily newsletter. And there are a few other things like that just to sort of keep on top of what's happening in the world.
Nayeli Diaz (23:47):
That was very helpful. Speaking of what's going on in the world, what do you think is some of the biggest things that are happening right now in the field? Most exciting things, the most urgent things that everybody should know about whether or not they want to be an environmental lawyer?
Michael Gerrard (24:02):
Well, the Trump administration is systematically trying to dismantle environmental regulation and move against renewable energy. So that's the biggest thing that is happening in the field right now. We bounce back and forth depending on what party is in power. So the Bill Clinton administration was sort of mildly pro-environmental. George W. Bush moved in the opposite direction. Obama moved forward, Trump won, moved backwards. Biden moved forward. Trump two was moving more aggressively backwards. So it's very heavily dependent. And one thing that I want to point out is that often government jobs are terrific jobs. There are jobs with U-S-E-P-A, there are jobs with the Justice Department. There are state attorneys general and state environmental agencies, and they all have environmental lawyers. Depending on your personal political orientation, you may or may not find this is the right time to go to work for the federal government if you find that it's not, there are often a lot of opportunities at the state level and in the big cities as well.
Nayeli Diaz (25:17):
Environmental law is something that I think, at least for me, has always felt like we're talking about. It kind of shifts with the wind, whoever is deciding that it's important or not. And I'm just curious, what is it that keeps you hopeful, that keeps you going in this, that keeps you excited to keep working on this
Michael Gerrard (25:37):
In the first place? The need for it is tremendous in terms of the health of individuals, the health of the planet. We really are in a climate crisis that is just going to get worse over time, but how much worse it gets will be determined in no small part by the law. And lawyers have a lot of tools that they can use to influence what happens, whether it's in terms of building out more renewables and encouraging electric vehicles, electrification and so forth, whether it's trying to reduce the use of fossil fuels and more use of clean fuel. But the outcomes of all this are really very important to our health and the health of the planet. There are a lot of very encouraging technological developments that are happening. Solar is getting much cheaper. Electric vehicles are getting much cheaper, especially those made in China. That's a whole other story, but there's a great deal of technological progress, even if the government is not always moving in the right direction, but just as we will always need doctors because there will always be people getting sick. We'll always need environmental lawyers because there will always be environmental problems that need to be addressed, and the law provides many of the most important tools for addressing those problems.
Nayeli Diaz (27:00):
Yeah, I think that's a great sentiment. I agree, and I appreciate that. Is there anything else that you'd like to leave our listeners with? Any law students, anybody who's interested in law school, anybody who is just curious about this field, what would you say to them?
Michael Gerrard (27:16):
Be prepared to go in directions that are differently different than what you planned. As I say, when I was in law school, I would've been shocked if somebody had told me that I was going to spend 30 years in private law firms and then that I would pivot to academia. That's not at all what I envisioned, but I'm very happy with the way that it has turned out. So if you really have a strong interest in environmental law and you develop some expertise in environmental law, there'll be a lot of different options open to you and keep your eyes open and be aware of what opportunities may become available.
Nayeli Diaz (27:55):
Thank you so much. That was very helpful.
Michael Gerrard (27:57):
My pleasure.
Todd Berger (27:59):
We'll be right back after this.
Eve Albert (28:08):
Nayeli, I'm really glad that you chose this topic. I don't know if you remember, but I'm part of the Environmental Law Journal and our guest was talking about that a little bit, so I got excited when I heard that it's such an important issue. I know that we already talked about why it matters to you personally, but do you want to talk a little bit about why you think that all law students should care about this issue?
Nayeli Diaz (28:32):
The more that I get into law school, the more that I think we all realize how interconnected everything is. Right? There are all these different pockets of the law, but at the end of the day, I think a lot of it works with each other. And so even if I think someone is not intending on being a strictly environmental attorney, there are things like environmental regulations. For instance, he mentioned about learning about corporations. If you're a lawyer who's going to be doing property law, you're probably going to have to be looking at the environmental regulations of where you're trying to build or where your client wants to build something and keeping in mind all these things. So I think it's really important that people are aware of it, even if it's not their main thing, that they're aware that it's something that they're going to be interacting with. So it's good to have a little bit of knowledge of it beforehand. And on the flip side, you're really passionate about it that there are so many opportunities for you out there that you can get to do this kind of work in a lot of different areas.
Eve Albert (29:26):
Yeah, no, absolutely. And I think that a lot of schools of thought focus on how different areas of the law affect all areas of the law or all areas of life. Like in family law, there's this very popular idea that it touches every aspect of life because everyone, even individuals make up their own family. And I think that environmental law is really interesting in this way that it quite literally concerns the world around us. There is no area that this area of law or just the environment in general does not touch. So I think that even if you have absolutely no interest in it, it is good just like as a person on this earth to have this information at your disposal and I don't know, kind of pay attention to it and keep up with it. Because as our guest was saying, these issues are exacerbated year after year, and it's important to do your due diligence and keep up with them.
Nayeli Diaz (30:30):
Yeah. I think it's also funny how you noted that you're on the Environmental Law Review, and he said there's about 20 schools that have one, and funny that both of our schools have an environmental law review. So having worked on that, is there anything that he said that you thought was particularly interesting having been on that journal that you've had to research or that you are maybe going to take with you into your next year? Maybe drafting?
Eve Albert (30:54):
There was something he talked about with the environmental review process that is, now, I know I have a precedent in this podcast that I like the nitty gritty, boring stuff basically, but environmental impact reports or one of my special interests, I think that they're so cool, and these, I don't know if you're familiar, but just for anyone who's not, they're these very, very long documents that basically cover top to bottom every single potential issue that development or any type of building on land or infiltrating land might cause from animals to flora and fauna and all of these things. And my favorite thing about them is that they are intentionally made and crafted to be digestible to the layman. So their purpose is for people in the community to be able to read and understand how their neighborhood is going to be affected by these things.
(32:00):
So that is something that he kind of touched on, but I did want to highlight. That's a very interesting part of environmental law, especially for people that may have an interest like I do in the super long super boring documents. They're not boring to me, but yeah, no, that was interesting. I also liked that he talked about water law courses. I do not know of a water law course at my school. The course that I took was called Renewable Energy Law, and that was very interesting. That's where I got a good basis of environmental law. But I think that it's cool to see what different of environmental are offered at different schools. Water law seems like a really good one for more schools to offer because that's something like our guest said that really touches everything and is probably one of the most prevalent aspects of environmental law. Does your school have water law? I can't remember.
Nayeli Diaz (32:59):
Yeah, there is a water law program here. There's a few environmental law classes at my school, which is actually one of the reasons why I came here. But I also thought, speaking of the courses that he discussed, I thought it was really interesting, some of the things that I know that I would never have thought of. He was talking about taking a tax class and taking a business corporations class because you're likely going to be interacting with corporations. That was super helpful, I think, to know to me, because I would not have put those pieces together, but when he explained it, it makes so much sense. Obviously, if you're going to be interacting on either side with corporations with these people or corporations trying to build whatever it is they're trying to build, it's important to know how they function. And so I thought that was really interesting the way that he talked about other courses that I wouldn't have thought would transfer into it.
Eve Albert (33:48):
No, I think that just in general for what we've learned from this podcast, I have taken in the fact that so many different courses or different opportunities will end up being helpful no matter what you want to do. There is really a way to spin any type of course or discipline or extracurricular or externship or internship to do or to benefit what you want to do. And so I think that that's a really good takeaway. I mean, I never would've guessed that tax and environmental would have such a close overlap, but no, it's a very good point. I did want to talk about, which he touched on, but the exacerbation of these issues, as I kind of mentioned, I think that another reason why it's important just practically for law students to get involved in these areas is because these issues by definition, whether you subscribe to the ideas of climate change, whether you believe in it or not, it's an undeniable fact that non-renewable are not renewable.
(34:59):
We are going to run out of these sources one day. We've already been seeing it happen. So I think that it's really important as the years go on, this area of law is going to get more and more prevalent, not less. I think that that's why this was a really good episode to introduce for this week because we don't see that many. I think that with certain goings on in the world, for example, the increase in AI or technology, there's this fear that certain areas of law are going to be less prevalent rather than more prevalent. This is one of those that is going to keep continuing on an upward incline.
Nayeli Diaz (35:41):
I completely agree. I think that especially a thing that I learned here is that if you're someone that likes a type of law that's always changing, right? You're talking about the prominence of AI over just the last few years has changed stuff, and we were talking about renewable energy sources and all those kinds of things. This type of law, environmental law will kind of always exist. It will just always change. I think if you're a person who loves to learn things and constantly be getting into different kinds of stuff, this is really good because the things that are important in the field will always be shifting. We're always, as humans making new innovations and new discoveries and new things that we have to work with, and I think that's one of the most exciting parts of it to me, is that I assume it's probably never boring. It's always changing. What's the most prominent thing you're working on or what's the new technology that's affecting it in whichever way. I think that's super cool, and I know there's a lot of people who probably really like that part of it.
Eve Albert (36:37):
Yeah, absolutely. I mean, not me. I love consistency, but some people for sure.
Nayeli Diaz (36:43):
But then on the other end, right, there's people like you who you're talking about how you are an academic to your core. You love to learn things, you love to write, you love to read things, and we were talking about these statutes of regulations that have been around for many, many years and are still the binding authority, and so I'm sure someone like you would love to get to go read that and then read how that has been implemented over the years.
Eve Albert (37:04):
Yes, absolutely. I think the general point is that there's something for every type of law student, every type of learner, every personality in the area of environmental law, so that's really cool.
Todd Berger (37:17):
Thanks to Professor Michael Gerrard for joining us for this episode, and thanks to Eve for stepping in for me today. In my absence, if you're excited to keep exploring environmental law, be sure to check out the a section of Environmental Energy and Resources. You'll find a link in the show notes, and if you're looking for even more content curated just for you, head over to the a, a Lawsuit and division website and become a member. We want to make sure we're making the best content for you. Let us know what you'd like to learn about by telling us in a review on Apple Podcasts or Spotify. Finally, we'd like to thank our production partners at Moraine Media and thank the ABA law student division for making this show a reality. We'll be back next month with our next episode. See you then.