Environmental Law Practice: Problems and Exercises for Skills Development

Adopted at dozens of law schools, this book is a valuable resource for imparting practical skills. Authors Anderson and Hirsch have drawn on their wide experience as environmental law professors and practitioners to develop realistic exercises that teach the craft of environmental lawyering. Readers will learn how to bring a federal enforcement action against a polluter; negotiate a Superfund settlement; prepare documents and strategy for a citizen's suit; counsel a corporation on environmental compliance; navigate the issues that arise in government agency litigation (e.g. limits on discovery, standards of review); and comment on an EPA rule making, as well as many other relevant skills.

Updated and expanded, the third edition of Environmental Law Practice is comprehensive in scope. It contains problems and exercises under each of the major environmental statutes. In addition, it places readers in the three key roles played by environmental lawyers―government attorney, corporate counsel, and public interest advocate―and provides practice pointers for each of these types of work. The book makes extensive use of original documents such as statutes, the Code of Federal Regulations (CFR), regulatory preambles, and agency guidance, exposing students to the materials that environmental lawyers use most.

This book covers the most significant areas of environmental practice: compliance, enforcement, litigation, and policy. It gives in-depth treatment of substantive environmental law areas such as the Clean Air Act, Clean Water Act, CERCLA, RCRA, EPCRA, and citizen suits. It incorporates current developments in environmental law, such as recent Supreme Court and circuit court cases. Of the many books on environmental law, Environmental Law Practice is one of the few to focus on environmental practice and not just the pure substantive doctrine.

"This book is a surprisingly useful tool for a practitioner, considering that it was designed as a tool for students. It provides a good starting point for an attorney venturing into an unfamiliar area of environmental law. ... This is a worthwhile purchase for an attorney entering the environmental law arena..." ― The Colorado Lawyer

"One of the most striking failures of most law schools' curriculum design is the failure to teach the art of hands-on regulatory practice―researching, interpreting, and applying administrative rules and guidelines―which according to some savants affects 80 percent or more of all modern legal practice. Jerry Anderson and Dennis Hirsch provide the cure. I use their book as an adjunct to the basic Environmental Law course; others use it as a freestanding elective. Either way the Anderson & Hirsch book is an eye-opener for students, giving them what is often their first and only competent entrée into the world of regulatory practice. Looking back on the exercises, my students tell me they cannot imagine how they could have felt confidence in their understanding of the field, and by extension other fields of law as well, if they hadn't had a teacher wise enough to introduce them to Anderson & Hirsch." ― Professor Zyg Plater, Boston College Law School

"Two environmental lawyers who also are law school professors developed this book to prepare students for the practice of environmental law...This book is a valuable resource that can be used in both beginning and advanced environmental law courses. The text not only teaches students about the relevant law, but also provides a realistic overview of the day-to-day issues an environmental attorney may face." ― Risk: Health, Safety and Environment, on the first edition

"Professors Anderson and Hirsch have drawn on their extensive practice backgrounds to produce a book that goes beyond case law and statutes to simulate real-world problems environmental lawyers face daily....Students will gain insight into the roles of government, private, and public interest environmental attorneys, while developing a deeper understanding of the substantive environmental law." ― Environmental Law, on the first edition

Jerry Anderson is Dean of the Law School and the Richard M. and Anita Calkins Distinguished Professor of Law at Drake University Law School.

Dennis Hirsch is Professor of Law and Director of the Program on Data and Governance at The Ohio State University Moritz College of Law.