Specializations

Students earning an Animal Law LLM or concentration in animal law – residentially or online – will be poised to be the world’s leaders in animal advocacy. They will have the opportunity to learn from experienced faculty and make a difference in the lives of animals in a variety of arenas.

Animal law is a rapidly growing field with expanding career pathways. Animal advocates include attorneys, lobbyists, consultants to non-profits, animal care professionals, authors, professors, politicians, serving in government agencies, and more.

The subjects of animal law include wildlife, companion animals, farmed animals, and animals used for entertainment and experimentation. Animal law encompasses all interactions with animals within the context of traditional areas of law, making it possible to incorporate animal law into any area of practice and many professions.

Increasingly, businesses see sustainability as an imperative to which they must respond. Whether by changing consumer demands or designing business models that adapt to the devastating impacts of climate change, businesses understand the need to integrate sustainability into their innovation, product design, and sales processes.

That’s why a new partnership between Vermont Law and Graduate School, the nation’s top environmental law school, and the University of Vermont’s School of Business Administration is putting a new kind of leader on a literal fast track. Students seeking UVM’s MBA in sustainable innovation can earn a joint master’s degree from VLGS in two years or a joint JD degree in just three years. Together the VLGS and UVM faculty will prime and prepare you to take on the business world’s new normal.

Vermont Law and Graduate School also offers a certificate in Business Law, a Business Law Concentration and a targeted suite of classes for students who want to specialize in business but aren’t interested in the joint degree. Courses in corporations, securities, bankruptcy, nonprofit management, and even white-collar crime are all available. Students can also enroll in our dispute resolution courses as well as clinic arbitration, mediation, and negotiation skills, which are incredibly valuable to businesses, and prospective employers.

Sustainable development, social activism among corporations, and forward-looking, employee-owned businesses are commonplace in Vermont. Here you can learn to be a new kind of business leader who makes a difference in your community and the world.

It is wholly unexpected that a Chinese environmental leader would best know only two or three cities in the United States: New York, Los Angeles, and South Royalton. But that’s what happens when a little law school in Vermont trains more than 1,000 Chinese individuals in environmental and energy law in just ten years.

As the challenges posed by climate change grow in urgency, the power that massive developing countries like China – and partner countries like Laos, Cambodia, Vietnam, and Myanmar, where China has invested significant resources – can leverage to effect change cannot be overstated.

The U.S.-Asia Partnerships for Environmental Law at Vermont Law and Graduate School has thus set out on a mission: to engage and train Chinese and Southeast Asian judges, legal scholars, students, natural resource managers, and other professionals in environmental justice, climate change issues, public interest advocacy, and environmental governance. Courses include:

• Comparative U.S.-China Environmental Law
• China Field Study
• Introduction to Chinese Law
• International Environmental Law and Policy
• Environmental Governance in the Developing World
• International Climate Change Law

The Partnership’s endeavors are not restricted to our colleagues across the Pacific. Students who specialize in Chinese and Southeast Asian environmental law at VLGS will study and research the region’s environmental governance challenges, improve their foreign language skills, and build useful connections for their future careers in international environmental law. Many students take an exchange semester abroad. And of course, students can draw upon Vermont Law and Graduate School’s extensive portfolio of environmental and international courses, clinics, journals, and extracurricular activities.

Whether they hail from South Royalton or Beijing, a generation of leaders will use the power of the law to address climate change, public health, and the environment in China and Southeast Asia, and Vermont Law and Graduate School will teach them how.

The U.S.-Asia Partnerships for Environmental Law is a collaborative program to advance environmental and energy law and policy in China and throughout Asia. The goal of the partnership – which is supported by a number of public and private organizations – is to strengthen the rule of law in environmental protection, as well as build capacity among individuals, academic, government, and private-sector institutions to solve environmental problems.

Since its inception in 2006, the partnership’s goals have been to strengthen the capacity of Chinese education, government, and civil society sectors to become effective environmental problem solvers. It is also focused on improving China’s policies, laws, and regulations to advance the development of environmental law in China while enhancing municipal, provincial, national, and international networks in China to advance best practices in environmental protection and energy regulation. Building upon the success it has achieved in China, this partnership has expanded its geographic scope in an effort to respond to the environmental governance needs of the region.

Led by Professor Siu Tip Lam, a former assistant attorney general in the Environmental Protection Division of the Massachusetts Attorney General’s Office, the program’s staff includes Professor Yanmei Lin, Associate Director; Claire Andrews, our Program Coordinator; an LLM Fellow; and other VLGS faculty advisors.

• Launch a new initiative to provide environmental governance training in Myanmar, to give key stakeholders a range of legal and policy tools that can be adapted to provide broad scale protection of the country’s key biodiversity areas
• Host Chinese scholars and students for residency programs at VLGS
• Train scholars from across China on international standards for environmental rights protection and teaching methodology
• Train stakeholders, including judges and prosecutors, to apply and enforce environmental laws and take steps to increase the role prosecutors could play in civil enforcement of environmental laws
• Establish an Environmental Law Training Program (ELTP) to train environmental stewards and legal advocates in China to use legal tools to promote environmental compliance and protect the environment, public health, and welfare
• Provide opportunities for VLGS students to work on cutting-edge research projects relating to environmental issues in China and throughout Southeast Asia

Climate change is the most profound social and environmental issue of the 21st century. In a time of broken global temperature records, and increasing disasters due to flooding, drought, and sea level rise, emerging U.S. and international law and policy will be key to governing mitigation of and adaptation to climate change.

Students wishing to specialize in climate change will learn tools to rapidly decarbonize the economy, such as how to build renewable energy and local food systems. You will also learn about strategies to increase society’s ability to adapt and be more resilient in the face of change critically examining ongoing controversies and initiatives at the local, state, regional, national, and international levels and applying existing federal laws – such as the Clean Air Act and NEPA – to address climate change, as well as understand limitations and the design of new laws and policies to accelerate exceeding the Paris Agreement goals.

Students in this specialization have the opportunity to participate in international climate negotiations through the Vermont Law and Graduate School Observer Delegation, which has participated in UNFCCC Conference of the Party discussions since COP15 in 2010.

Vermont Law and Graduate School offers a robust program for students interested in a career in criminal law, including the option to pursue a Certificate in Criminal Law.
A certificate in criminal law provides broad-based, comprehensive training and skills needed by students to become prosecutors, and defenders, or to practice criminal law in a private firm setting. It includes courses in Criminal Law, Constitutional Criminal Procedure or Criminal Practice and Procedure, and Evidence.

Students have access to specialized knowledge in such matters as sentencing law, narcotics law, white-collar crime, juvenile justice, electronic surveillance, and computer crime. This is a field rich with job opportunities: there are prosecutor and defender positions in every state, county, and city, as well as at the federal level, for a total of tens of thousands of jobs across the U.S.

Moreover, at Vermont Law and Graduate School, students learn about criminal law from experts who bring a unique set of experiences and skills to this practice area. In addition to access to faculty expertise, students have the opportunity to participate in and organize conferences. Recently, students attended an event on innovative criminal justice practices in Vermont that was attended by Vermont Governor Peter Shumlin, Supreme Court Chief Justice Paul Reiber, Attorney General William Sorrell, and other leaders in the Vermont legal community.

Consider electrification, and you’ll quickly understand both the complexity and importance of energy and the environment.​

Access to reliable electricity correlates with good public health and economic success, yet nearly 25 percent of the world’s population lives without electricity. Another third has limited access. Meanwhile, the 600 million of us who have abundant electricity keep finding ways to use more. It’s no wonder that electricity demand is increasing at a staggering rate.

Energy generation and consumption, however, is also the world’s largest source of pollution and cause of environmental degradation. As a result, energy policy has become the single most important influence on environmental protection. The need to transition expeditiously to a low-carbon future is perhaps our greatest environmental and economic challenge and increased electrification is at the center of this transition. This challenge has sparked a clean energy revolution that is creating unprecedented growth and career opportunities in solar and offshore wind development, the electrification of cars and mass transit, as well as clean and resilient opportunities in distributed technologies – such as storage, demand response, efficiency, and renewables.

Vermont Law and Graduate School’s Institute for Energy and the Environment offers the largest collection of clean energy law and policy courses and clinics available, plus seamless integration with a world-class environmental law and policy program and unparalleled climate law course offerings.

Further expertise is gained through engagement with the Institute for Energy and the Environment (IEE) on real-world energy law and policy issues as well as through our collaborative work with the U.S.-Asia Partnership for Environmental Law we offer classroom, research and travel opportunities to China and Asia.

The Institute for Energy and the Environment is a national and world energy policy resource with an advanced energy law and policy curriculum focused on the energy policy of the future and the transition to a low-carbon future. The institute serves as a center for graduate research on the clean energy transition and recently established a year-round student-staffed energy clinic, which works on legal and business models for clean and resilient community energy development.

At VLGS, students learn how to work with and improve America’s legal and policy system in order to help humanity meet the challenge of energy issues. The IEE is working on client-focused projects exploring energy security and justice, barriers to the integration of renewable energy resources, how smart grid technologies can enhance both efficiency and expand the electrification of transportation, as well as data privacy issues related to customer solar and energy efficiency information.

Since 1978, Vermont Law and Graduate School has offered the largest and top-ranked graduate environmental law program in the country. VLGS offers more degrees, more certificates, more faculty, and more research centers than any other school focused on environmental law. And our extraordinarily well-connected network of alumni is shaping environmental law and policy throughout the world.

VLGS offers a multidisciplinary array of environmental courses in law, policy, science, economics, and ethics to students studying for any one of our degrees or certificates. We support such a broad curriculum because we believe the next generation of environmental leaders will need a very large toolbox.

An entire generation of law and policy students will go on to face potentially catastrophic environmental challenges like disrupted weather patterns, food and water scarcity, sea-level rise, species migration, and much more that we can’t now anticipate. But Vermont Law students are different: They know that right now is a critical time to make a difference in the world and that Vermont Law and Graduate School will ensure they’re up to the challenge. We have planted a flag here for a simple reason: because you can’t solve the world’s problems without educating the world’s best problem-solvers.

Environmental issues are global issues. The unique opportunities at Vermont Law and Graduate School prepare our graduates to be leaders​ in international environmental law and policy. A curriculum of over one dozen international environmental courses is further enhanced by study opportunities through our partnerships with leading foreign universities. Courses for this specialization include:

• International Environmental Law
• Peace, War, and the Environment
• International Investment Arbitration and the Environment
• International Trade and the Environment
• Comparative U.S.-China Environmental Law
• International Climate Change Law
• Human Rights and the Environment
• European Community Environmental Law​
• Global Energy Law and Policy
• International Investment Arbitration and the Environment​
• Environmental Governance in the Developing World​​

Food is fundamental. Yet the food system is not always a priority for law and policy makers.
Because of its connection to so many other areas of national concern—including public health, the environment, consumer protection, the economy, immigration, animal welfare, national security, energy, labor, international relations, and trade—it is necessary to approach regulation of the food system in its broader context. Ensuring an equitable food system that delivers positive outcomes requires new law and policy approaches to food and agriculture at the federal, state, and local levels.

Through the Center for Agriculture and Food Systems (CAFS), Vermont Law and Graduate School offers a systems-based curriculum that equips JD and Master’s to become leaders in food and agricultural law and policy. Students specializing in Food and Agricultural Law can choose from a diverse set of courses while also engaging in practical projects with our Food and Agriculture Clinic, which provides support to farmers and food producers—both in the hills surrounding our campus and across the country.

Words are the fundamental tools with which lawyers and policymakers conduct their business. Therefore, it is paramount that today’s law and policy graduates know how to write the law, not just read cases.

Employers will tell you the same. That’s why Vermont Law and Graduate School requires that all JD and master’s students take legal writing courses, and the results are outstanding. For instance, Andrew Rome, JD ’17, won the 2018 Burton Distinguished Legal Writing Award, the country’s top legal writing honor. He was the fifth Vermont Law student in eight years to win.

Our expert legal writing faculty will help you hone your craft through courses like Legal Writing, Legislation and Regulation, and Appellate Advocacy, advising students who take part in classic scholarly extracurriculars like the Vermont Law Review, Vermont Journal for Environmental Law, and Moot Court, as well as by mentoring students who want to take on the challenge of competition or strive for publication. The strong legal writing skills you develop at VLGS will remain with you throughout your career, regardless of your professional path.

With the current criminal justice system financially and ethically untenable, we need a new way to think about and respond to harm, conflict, and crime. By bringing together students committed to developing new ways of thinking about harm with national and international restorative justice leaders, Vermont Law and Graduate School will educate the next generation of justice reformers.

Students wishing to specialize in restorative justice will combine traditional law courses with restorative justice courses, simulations, and experiential learning opportunities. Graduates are prepared to become forceful and articulate agents for change in law and restorative justice. As criminal justice transforms using more restorative practices, all lawyers should understand that there’s another way to look at conflict and conflict avoidance.

The Center for Justice Reform brings enhanced curricular attention to cutting-edge criminal justice issues and organizes conferences, presentations, and lectures related to justice reform efforts.

We know that improving the environment requires changing the way we run our businesses, use our resources, and act as citizens. But how do we actually make that change occur? One lever for change has been taxation, and at Vermont Law and Graduate School, students learn how to utilize that tool to produce change in society.

Taxes can send strong messages. Whether we want to discourage harmful behavior or encourage green choices, taxes on pollution can help businesses, organizations, and individuals think about the cost of social harm – and encourage them to act in ways that help society. For example, the U.S. federal government imposed a significant excise tax on ozone-depleting chemicals when it wanted to phase out those chemicals, and Canada’s British Columbia has placed a substantial tax on carbon emissions. The government can also offer tax benefits, such as the federal tax credit to individuals who reduce carbon emissions by purchasing an electric vehicle.

Environmental taxation is an intriguingly complex subject, requiring an understanding of both the desired outcome and the way that a tax can be proposed, administered, and evaluated. Since nearly all types of tax systems and levels of government can implement environmental tax policies – and because environmental tax policy can complement environmental regulation – the subject of environmental tax policy requires a sophisticated understanding of both taxation and the environment.

At Vermont Law and Graduate School, students learn to navigate these fascinating waters. Here you learn to understand the reach and limits of tax systems and the environmental goals in need of support. Students contribute directly to the ongoing public policy debate through the Environmental Tax Policy Institute. Directed by Professor Janet Milne, the institute’s real-world research considers constitutional questions raised by environmental taxation, the design of sound tax programs, the application of environmental taxation to specific issues – such as climate change, water pollution and land conservation, the merits of carbon taxes versus carbon trading programs, the impact of WTO trade rules on tax measures, and much more.

Water is the planet’s most precious natural resource. Deciding how it will be shared among competing demands is one of society’s most challenging questions. Water Resources Law is a review of the law and policies concerned with the allocation of water resources in the United States. This course examines the three main systems of water law in the United States: Eastern riparian systems, the prior appropriation doctrine of the West, and the nationally diverse laws regulating the use of groundwater. The course will also review federal water allocation issues, interstate water disputes, and tribal water rights matters, highlighting contemporary water allocation dilemmas throughout the country.