Tuesday, February 23, 2010

Lazarus on Environmental Law and the Supreme Court

Available on the Georgetown University Law Center's website, is a recording of my colleague Richard Lazarus's inaugural address as the Justice William J. Brennan, Jr., chair, entitled Environmental Law and the Supreme Court: The Significance of Advocacy and Opinion Writing at One First Street, N.E. Lazarus is the author of The Making of Environmental Law (University of Chicago 2004). His address draws upon extensive research in the justices' papers to describe the string of defeats environmental lawyers in cases on the merits brought under the National Environmental Policy Act since its enactment in 1970.

The address will be of interest to historians of environmental law and the recent history of the U.S. Supreme Court. Viewers who can do without Georgetown Law's version of pomp and circumstance can skip to about the thirty-third minute, although by doing so you'll miss my colleague Peter Byrne's wonderful and substantive introduction of Professor Lazarus and his career.