ELI was pleased to hold the third year of its highly acclaimed Skills Workshop in Public Interest Environmental Law. The workshop was open to staff of public interest organizations with a local, regional, national, and international focus and that address environmental protection, conservation of natural resources, and environmental justice.
This workshop was specifically dedicated to skills training for junior attorneys and policy professionals who work for public interest organizations. ELI drew from more than 20 years of experience working with senior practitioners to distill the substance and practice of environmental law into training programs for new environmental attorneys.
This was a dynamic workshop with a significant amount of peer-to-peer interaction. We created mechanisms for promoting dialogue among participants, and significant time was devoted on both days to networking and relationship building. After the workshop, ELI facilitates a listserv for attendees so they can stay in touch after the course, share experiences, and seek advice about practice issues.
Participants learned to:
- practice skills necessary to use natural resource and environmental protection law and policy to advance conservation goals,
- improve understanding of key legal issues within the environmental community, and
- foster cooperation among environmental groups and professionals working in diverse geographical regions and substantive focuses, including environmental justice.
The faculty was drawn from those in public interest groups who practice law and policy every day, professors from prominent law schools across the country, and experts from government agencies such as EPA, so that participants are exposed to a variety of perspectives.
The agenda for the 2012 course may be found here.