The two-year fellowship is available starting in September 2019. For the first year, through August 2020, the Fellow will work at NRDC. During that time, the Fellow will focus on litigation or policy efforts to redress environmental and public health harms, such as air and water pollution, climate change, threats to endangered species, environmental injustice, and exposure to toxic chemicals. If the Fellow is placed with an NRDC subject matter program (such as Climate & Clean Energy, Nature, or Healthy People & Thriving Communities), she may represent NRDC and its members in federal or state court litigation and may also pursue policy initiatives in one or more of those areas. If the Fellow is placed with NRDC’s Litigation Team, she will litigate in federal or state court on a variety of environmental and/or public health issues. In doing so, she will represent NRDC and its members, and may collaborate with other environmental, labor, and public health groups. In either case the Fellow will work closely with, and be supervised by, experienced NRDC attorneys. The Fellow will be placed in one of NRDC’s major offices (New York, San Francisco, Washington, D.C., Chicago, or Santa Monica), depending on the Fellow’s preference and NRDC’s needs.
For the second year, the Fellow will work at Yale in New Haven, Connecticut, providing support for environmental law clinics, dual degree students, and events and activities relating to environmental law and policy. The Fellow’s primary responsibility will be to coordinate and co-teach the EPC along with NRDC experts and a Yale faculty member. As noted above, the EPC is an interdisciplinary clinic offered jointly between Yale Law School and the Yale School of Forestry & Environmental Studies. The EPC creates teams of graduate students to work on substantial projects for outside organizations. Projects include litigation support, administrative advocacy, legislative drafting, strategic and communications planning, network building, scientific literature reviews, and more. In addition to being the primary coordinator of the EPC, the Fellow will also have substantive supervision responsibilities for particular EPC student projects. It is the intention of NRDC and Yale that those projects will include matters that the Fellow has already worked on during the first year of the Fellowship at NRDC.
- Admission (or eligibility for admission on motion) to the relevant state bar for the NRDC office where the Fellow will work.
- Exceptional legal writing, analytical, and oral advocacy skills.
- Excellent academic and professional record.
- Comfort interpreting scientific and technical concepts.
- Strong interpersonal skills and enthusiasm for teamwork.
- Capacity to work hard, efficiently, and independently.
- Commitment to public service or social justice work.
- Interest in mentoring students in environmental advocacy.
- Judicial clerkship or substantial clinical experience (preferred).