Appalachian School of law offers more natural resources law classes than most law schools. How did that come about? During my first year at the law school, we had a strategic planning faculty retreat. There, the school committed to three broad strategic goals as part of its mission to serve Appalachian communities, and one was to develop a natural resources law focus. It made sense geographically, given our location in the mountains, in coal country, near forestlands, with rivers and outdoor recreation, with the shale gas boom, etc. And it made sense strategically, as we surveyed offerings of other schools around the country and knew that, as a small, mission-based and relatively new school, we needed a niche. So we just started doing it. We looked at offerings by other schools around the country, adjusted our curriculum to allow for more natural resources offerings, got buy-in from the faculty, and developed new courses. I created a Sustainable Energy Law course from scratch that combined traditional Energy Law with the law of climate change, and I started teaching my Appellate Advocacy course around a natural resources problem I drafted each year. Other professors developed courses in Environmental Dispute Resolution, Mineral Title Abstracting, Wildlife Law, and may others. We went from one class (Environmental Law) to 13 related classes in a few years, and we’ve been able to maintain a robust catalog of offerings over the years.
At most EMLF conferences, it seems that several of your students are in attendance. What do you tell them about EMLF to motivate them to attend? I try to stress the networking opportunities. It’s hard for some of them, as students will frequently stay within their little circles during the happy hours. But I encourage them to get out of their comfort zones and just try talking with the lawyers around the room. I’ve found (and the students usually find) that most practitioners at EMLF events love to talk about their practices. The conferences are also about taking the lessons from the classrooms and seeing how practitioners discuss the same topics in the real world. At some point, if they go to a couple conferences, student will start to realize that they can understand this seemingly foreign language of energy and mineral law. It also helps that we try to raise some money to cover some of the travel expenses to Lexington. Students helping with the Annual Institute have gotten tuition waived for the Lexington conference. Through alumni connections, our students have received funds from Alpha Natural Resources / Alpha Metallurgical to help with travel costs. ASL has historically had a healthy competition with Kentucky, and then with West Virginia, to turn out the most students to the Lexington conference. After last year, it is clear that LSU Law is turning out. It’s great to see so many students from different schools. Even if students networking with professionals can be intimidating, students usually find a way to connect with other students.
Do you find time to travel for fun? Do you have a favorite place to visit? The academic calendar does lend itself to traveling. While we tend not to repeat destinations, we have historically emphasized travels to national parks and forests, and other public lands. Our trips tend to emphasize hiking or other outdoor activity, good eating and drinking (including foodie tours), and something cultural (and, if we’re in an English-speaking country, comedy clubs). We just returned hiking the Inca Trail to Machu Pichu, and eating well in Lima.
You practiced law for a decade and now you have been teaching law students for several years. You get to advise you own students in person, but what advice would you give to other law school students who might be reading this article? Quite apart from all the success-at-law-school practical tips (outlining, time management, etc.), a few things come to mind. First, make yourself relevant. Find something you like, and become really good at it. This could be a substantive law niche (the only one in the office who knows IP or the bankruptcy rules or whatever), but you could also be really good at client development, or at technology, or at managing complex litigation, or at efficiently processing small-claims, or at appellate work. The importance of your academic achievements will, for most of you, rescind quickly once you get out into practice; you need to be good at something. Second, be nice. And especially be nice to clerks and judges’ secretaries and legal assistants and runners and all the people that can make your professional life easier. First impressions matter. Put in the hours (billable or otherwise) that first year. Once you have a reputation as a hard worker, it’s hard to shake. Lastly, just keep thinking. Follow the news; read and travel; be curious about your client’s business of life; make yourself interesting.