Lewis & Clark College

The Law School

Lewis & Clark Law School’s campus combines the best of city life with the natural beauty that surrounds Portland. Our campus is just six miles from downtown Portland and borders a forested wilderness park that provides the perfect backdrop to the study of environmental law.

Because we are close to downtown Portland and are less than an hour from the state capital of Salem, our students have the opportunity to work and intern with environmental organizations, government agencies, and a variety of environmental lawyers while they are going to school.

The Program

Lewis & Clark’s overall environmental law program was founded in 1970 and is consistently ranked as one of the best in the United States by U.S. News and World Report. LL.M. students benefit from this top-ranked program by selecting from the same impressive list of environmental and natural resources classes we offer to our J.D. students. Our classes are offered year-round (including summer) and include opportunities to work in the real world through an internship with an environmental organization, law firm, or government agency, or through one of our three on-campus environmental law clinics that represent clients in international environmental law, U.S. environmental litigation, and animal law issues. Our environmental law classes and clinics are taught by a diverse and experienced faculty that includes 11 full-time professors, six clinical professors, and numerous well-known environmental lawyers.

Lewis & Clark offers classes in both “environmental law,” focusing on the legal schemes for regulating pollution of air, land, and water, and “natural resources law,” addressing the legal schemes for resources such as wildlife, water, forests, minerals, and public lands. We also offer cutting-edge classes such as Environmental Justice, International Environmental Law, Trade and the Environment, Environmental Mediation and Negotiation, and Law, Science and the Environment. Our environmental law summer classes include unique outdoor field classes.

Lewis & Clark’s environmental law LL.M. is very flexible. We require 26 semester hours of study that can be completed in as little as two semesters (9 months) or as long as 2 ½ years, depending on your schedule. We offer environmental law classes year-round, including in the summer, and in the day and in the evening. LL.M. students can start in either the fall or spring semester. (We recommend that international students begin the program in the fall so they can attend an orientation in August that will help prepare them for study at a U.S. law school.) U.S. students can choose to complete a major written thesis on an environmental topic of their choice or to take additional course work instead. All LL.M. students attend a special seminar where they discuss a variety of topics with the environmental faculty, prepare a paper on an environmental topic of their choice, and make an oral presentation on their paper to classmates and the environmental faculty.

The Faculty

Our LL.M. program is small so that we can work with each LL.M. on an individual basis. Our full-time environmental law program director, Janice Weis, J.D., assists each U.S. LL.M. with his or her course selection, provides career counseling along with our career services office, and helps with paper topics. Lin Harmon, J.D., our full-time assistant director, works with each international LL.M. student on course selection and class tutoring, orients students to Portland, and teaches a free workshop each August to help international students prepare to study U.S. environmental law. Our experienced staff at the international students’ office works with each international student to obtain a visa. Each LL.M. also has a faculty advisor who can also assist in class choices, paper topics, and career advice.

Application Procedure

We recommend that you apply by March 15 to begin the program in August and by August 1 to start the program in January. However, we accept applications outside of these times and throughout the year.

Tuition and Fees

For information about our current tuition, contact us at elaw@lclark.edu. We are able to offer partial tuition scholarships to highly qualified U.S. and international students in need.

Location

Located in the beautiful Pacific Northwest, Lewis & Clark is the only law school in Oregon’s largest city of Portland. Portland was recently named North America’s “Best Big City” by Money magazine and is often called one of America’s most liveable cities. Although the Portland metropolitan area has a population of almost two million people, the city maintains a comfortable, welcoming feel. Located along the scenic Willamette River, Portland combines the attributes of a world-class cosmopolitan city with the charm of a small town. Portland has a vibrant downtown, gourmet restaurants, art and cultural events, and a variety of shopping options, and is also home to miles of urban hiking trails, bike paths, and beautiful parks. In about an hour and a-half, you can also ski Mount Hood, visit the scenic Oregon coast, or explore one of the many state and federal forests and wilderness areas.

Student Life

Over 100 people have graduated from our LL.M. program since it began in 1988. Our LL.M. graduates have had great success finding environmental law jobs all over the country and the world and are employed in government, non-profit, private, and academic careers.

To learn more about our environmental law LL.M. and to view profiles of some our LL.M. graduates, please visit law.lclark.edu/dept/elaw/llm_home.html or contact us at elaw@lclark.edu