Natural Resources Litigation Clinic
- Professors, Natural Resources Litigation Clinic: Michael Saul and Joe Feller
- Course Number and Description
Mission and Clients
The Natural Resources Litigation Clinic was one of the nation’s first, opening in 1978. Under the direction of National Wildlife Federation staff attorneys, students represent clients before administrative agencies, state and federal courts, state legislatures, and the U.S. Congress on environmental issues such as protection of federal public lands managed by the Bureau of Land Management and the U.S. Forest Service. Clinic students have been part of landmark environmental and natural resources litigation, including U.S. Supreme Court cases.
Scope
Clinic students work on district court challenges to several recent and anticipated revisions of rules used by federal land management agencies to govern activities on federal lands across the West. Students obtain expert testimony and prepare witnesses; analyze and present detailed scientific and environmental data; and submit complex legal briefs. Cases often receive national attention.
Types of Legal Assistance
Students have participated in cases challenging:
- Federal agencies’ compliance with the National Environmental Policy Act, Clean Water Act, Wilderness Act, Endangered Species Act, and other statutes when federal agencies permit livestock grazing, mining, road building, surface coal mining, or oil and gas development on environmentally sensitive lands
- Potential threats to endangered species, including species like the whooping crane and black tailed prairie dog
- Surface coal mining on federal lands containing crucial wildlife habitat
- Fences blocking wildlife access to and across federal lands
- Oil and gas leasing and development on federal lands
- Protection of wilderness areas from mechanized road development and road building
- Federal agency actions to protect natural resources where the regulated permit holder claims the federal action resulted in a taking of his private property
