Environmental Law

Earthtojul’s guide to environmental law, and all of your questions answered!

What exactly IS environmental law?

The environmental law field is a collection of laws, regulations, agreements, and policies that govern how we interact with our environment 🙂 You may have heard of the Clean Air Act, the Clean Water Act, etc., those are environmental laws! There are tons of attorneys working in this growing field. Some attorneys work to enact the laws, some work to implement them through regulations and policymaking, some attorneys fight against them, and others work to ensure their clients comply with these laws!

It’s important to note that there are two main buckets when practicing law: litigation and transactional. Litigation is everything related to suing and being sued, and all of the steps that go along with it. Transactional work is basically everything else. Conducting research, drafting contracts, agreements, regulations, running programs, advising clients, etc. You can do either (or both) in any area of law, and environmental law is no exception! This is why I always tell people that you do not have to like public speaking or court in order to be an attorney. Most attorneys are not trial attorneys, and there are plenty of attorneys who do transactional work and never see a court room. Running environmental programs at an agency, advising clients on environmental compliance, and drafting environmental review documents are all such great options that wouldn’t involve litigation, and I highly encourage you to look into what else is out there in this field + chat with practicing environmental attorneys to get a better idea at what they do on a day to day basis!

Environmental attorneys work in all sectors of the legal field: Attorneys that work for federal agencies may either defend agency actions under environmental regulations or bring enforcement actions pursuant to environmental laws (such as the Dept. of Justice). There are also a whole bunch of environmental attorneys working at agencies crafting policies and regulations and running environmental programs who never touch litigation at all. This would be the attorneys who work at agencies such as the Environmental Protection Agency, the Dept. of Energy, Dept. of Transportation, etc. Attorneys with federal and state legislatures provide counsel on drafting policy, whereas lobbyists inform their clients of pending legislation and advocate on behalf of their clients. Public interest attorneys work for non-profit advocacy organizations and environmental justice coalitions such EarthJustice, the NRDC, Sierra Club, and small grassroots community groups. In-house corporate attorneys advise their client on a wide range of issues, including compliance with environmental laws, tax, securities and real property matters. In private practice, attorneys typically represent businesses, corporations and industries subject to federal, state and local regulations (unless you work at a firm like mine, where the clients are public agencies such as city governments! In which case, you are working for the public sector advising on everything you would as a City Attorney. More on that later.)

Areas within environmental law

Where to begin? There are so many more niches than people think! Water rights, water quality, ocean and coastal, air, CEQA / NEPA (state and federal law requiring environmental impact assessment), environmental justice, solid waste and recycling, pesticides, toxic substances, climate change, natural resources, mining, energy law, agriculture, endangered species / biodiversity … the list goes on! And plenty of other areas of law intersect with these niches.

How can I figure out if this is the right field for me?

I have plenty of tips for undergrads and law students down below, some of which might also help to figure out if environmental law is the right field for you. Keep in mind, you do NOT have to know which area of law you want to work in to go to law school. A lot of people don’t even know when they graduate and take the Bar exam! I would suggest watching some environmental law related movies and documentaries to see if you’re interested in their subject matter. I also suggest joining local organizations such as your local Sierra Club chapter, and doing informational interviews with attorneys! Informational interviews is the number one thing I always suggest to students who are trying to figure out if law school is right for them. An informational interview can be as informal as a coffee chat, or as formal as coming and sitting down in the attorney’s office to ask them your questions. The purpose is to get information on the person’s field, job, and day to day work. This is the best way to get a good idea of what your work could look like in various sectors as an environmental attorney! I have tips and how to ask for an informational interview here.

Environmental movies/docs suggestions

Erin Brockovich, starring Julia Roberts!

A Civil Action, with John Travolta

Water and Power: A California Water Heist

Extinction: The Facts

Public Trust: The Fight for America’s Public Lands

What is the pay/work-life balance like in this field?

As with any area of law, it completely depends! The median salary for ALL U.S. attorneys is $120,000, meaning half make that or less. And how much you make will vary based on the sector you’re working in, the geographic area, your years of experience, etc. What do I mean by “sector”? There is the private sector (law firms, and corporate), public/government sector, the public interest sector (non profits, clinics, etc). Even within each sector the salaries will vary a ton. A small community-based grassroots nonprofit in the Central Valley is not going to pay you the same as working for the NRDC in San Francisco, and the big law firms are going to pay you a crazy high salary (starting at about $200K or more) whereas the smaller and midsized firms are going to pay a lower amount, I would say somewhere between 90 and 150 depending on many factors, like firm size. Government jobs highly vary as well, and for entry level lawyer jobs in environmental agencies I saw mostly salaries between $70k-100k/year. Unfortunately, a lot of the most impactful and needed legal work in the environmental space (in my opinion) comes from these small community based nonprofits that are doing environmental justice work. The job listings I saw for those when I was looking for a post-bar job had salaries at around $55k-65k/year.

As far as work-life balance goes, this also highly varies! My work experience in the government sector, local, state, and federal, was the best. Of course I was merely an intern and wasn’t in a high stakes position, but it seemed to me like most people left around 5 or 6, did not work late or on weekends, and the offices did not care much if you left early/arrived late or had to take a day off from time to time, as long as your work got done. Now, at a small firm of about 20-25 people, I have experienced the same. Part of that may be that our clients are all public agencies and we follow a very similar schedule to them, but I think it also has to do with firm culture and how much the firm values that balance. I have a billable hour requirement (how many hours of my work are actually billed to a client) that I keep track of daily, and as long as I am meeting that billable hour requirement, I am able to take time off, leaving early, come in late, etc. Generally the larger the firm (and the salary) is, the larger your billable hour requirement will be. Mine is 1,850 hours a year (of billable time, not hours physically spent at work), whereas in big law firms I know their requirements for billable hours can hit the 2000s. If work life balance is a big priority to you, I would definitely investigate further through informational interviews with practicing attorneys in various sectors, and ask some questions about it in your job interviews!

My path to becoming an environmental attorney

I first became interested in this field when I was in high school. I was competing on the high school mock trial team at the time with my friends just for fun, and the legal field really interested me. At the same time, I loved AP environmental science, and decided to marry the two interests and become an environmental attorney. And that is what I did! When I got to UC Davis for college, I majored in Environmental Policy. The major was a bachelor of science, so I got a good mix of environmental science and the policy/law side. I actually got to take an environmental law course at the undergraduate level (one that I ended up serving as a TA for once I got to law school, full circle moment awwww). I also landed an internship at the California Environmental Protection Agency, where I worked at CalRecycle drafting regulations on a large organic waste law that had passed in the State. When a law is passed by the legislature, it gets sent to the agency that is the “expert” on that subject matter (here, CalEPA). The agency then goes through rule making to publish regulations that work to enforce the law and give it more specificity. Lawmakers definitely wouldn’t understand the complexities of composting, so they leave all of the specifics to the agency! When the regulations are drafted, they go through a long process where the public is allowed to submit comments, the agency must respond to them, public hearings are held, updated drafts are published, and then the regulation is finally enacted. I loved working on all of that! And working on environmental policies that serve as a role model to the rest of the country. If you’re in California and your neighborhood or City recently started collecting organic waste (for composting most likely), I had a role in that 🙂 I learned a great deal about all of the procedures and steps for making regulations, and how waste and recycling is tracked throughout the State. During my internship there, I took as many opportunities as possible to chat with the legal department and ask them about their jobs. That is actually where I did my first informational interview! From those chats, I was able to get a better sense of what environmental attorneys at the State level do.

I applied to law school during my senior year of college to go straight through. Luckily, I got into UC Davis Law, which was really good for someone interested in environmental law. The law school has an environmental journal, a water justice clinic, faculty who specialize in environmental law, and so much more. I was able to take a ton of environmental law courses that aren’t typically offered at most law schools (Energy law, land use and planning, water law, environmental justice). A lot of the environmental courses were taught by practicing attorneys who actually worked in the field and I loved learning from them. While in law school, I interned at a City Attorney’s office mainly working on land use and planning. I loved it because I got to apply a lot of what I learned in my undergrad major, and law school, to the work. The following summer, I worked at the United States Environmental Protection Agency in D.C. and helped to strengthen civil rights protections in the environmental justice space. It was a really cool experience! I wrote more about my time at the US EPA in a blog post here.

My first job out of law school is working at a small municipal law firm in downtown Sacramento. I worked at this firm part time during my last semester of law school (and documented my post-bar job hunt process, here). Municipal firms represent local governments and other public agencies. Our clients are cities and we act as their City Attorney (their legal dept., basically). There is a lot of environmental work to do on the local level, especially in land use and planning! On a typical day, I am doing a lot of legal research, looking up laws and cases to find an answer to a client’s question. I also draft contracts, agreements, review environmental impact reports, and help with planning/zoning for our cities. I also attend city council and planning commission meetings! I have really loved it so far (and have shared that as much as I can on instagram stories and tiktok), but I’ll dedicate a whole blog post to that later. 🙂

Tips for undergrads interested in environmental law

If you’re interested in environmental law, my first tip is to try to major in environmental policy or science, if your college offers it. I learned so much valuable information through my major and came into law school equipped whereas a lot of classmates were learning the same information as they went. Even if your school does not offer enviro policy or enviro science as a major, try to take any classes related to that. Environmental law, land use/urban planning, the policy making process, environmental science, and a lot of various focused political science courses may be helpful to learning a bit about the environmental space. If you are not able to do any of that, do not stress! A lot of students have no experience with environmental law whatsoever when they get to law school. You aren’t expected to have any prior experience in the field, it’s just helpful if you do!

I would also definitely suggest finding clubs and other organizations that are local to you to get involved in environmentalism. Most schools have some sort of environmental club (if not, think about starting one?), a student or community garden/farm, and at my college, we also had a group within the student government working on sustainability issues. If you want to go beyond campus, check out your local chapter of the Sierra Club and other environmental groups nearby. One great place to look for groups, events, and other environmental happenings is Patagonia Action Works. You type in your location and what you’re interested in and it gives you local orgs, petitions, and events! It is a great tool to check out. Patagonia also has some FANTASTIC mini documentaries up on youtube that are on environmental topics. I recently watched “District 15 Stop Neighborhood Oil Drilling” which explains environmental justice and air pollution issues with oil drilling. Documentaries are a great way to become educated on some of the concepts and topics of the environmental field.

My next tip would be to test out the field with an internship! I have provided plenty of tips for college students looking to do an internship in a comprehensive blog post in the past, linked here. Federal and state environmental agencies, as well as nonprofits and some local government departments, are a good place to look. If you can’t find anything, don’t stress! You can always do another internship that is related to policymaking or law, and apply what you learn to the environmental field down the road. While in undergrad, I also did an internship with a public defender’s office and while the subject matter was criminal and not environmental, I learned a lot about litigation.

Tips for current law students interested in environmental law

First tip, as always: network network network! I cannot stress the important of networking enough. It’s how I landed most interviews and received a ton of job/internship offers (including my current job!). Through networking, I have been able to meet some great environmental attorneys and learn a lot about what they do. I did a law school networking blog post a while back.

I also suggest you take any environmental courses your school offers, and reach out to faculty expressing your interest in enviro law to see if they can guide you toward any internship/job opportunities or network connections in that area. Our faculty would always forward out any emails they received about environmental competitions, scholarships, and applications.

In addition to joining any environmental law clubs at your law school, you should also look at moot court for getting involved. I got to participate in the National Environmental Law Moot Court Competition during my 2L year representing my law school and it was so fun! We did a Clean Air Act case. If your school doesn’t typically send a team to this annual competition, you should ask if you can form one. There were a lot of judges for the comp who were environmental attorneys and the competition allows you dive deep into a super complex and niche issue within environmental law!

Last tip: conferences and Bar Associations! I was able to attend environmental conferences for free most times when I was a law student. The big one in California is the California Lawyers Association conference in Yosemite every year and there are so many environmental attorneys there! Also, most local bar associations have free memberships available for law students, so definitely take advantage and then go get involved (again, networking is so important). If they have a section specifically dedicated to environmental law, join it! You never know when you’ll meet someone who is looking to hire a law clerk or post-bar clerk.

I am always happy to answer any questions you have! Use the Q&A function on my Tiktok profile, message me on Instagram, or comment on any of my tiktok/IG videos!

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