Yale-NRDC Law Fellow at Natural Resources Defense Council

NRDC is a non-profit environmental advocacy organization. We use law, science, and the support of 3.1 million members and online activists to protect the planet's wildlife and wild places and to ensure the rights of all people to clean air, clean water, and healthy communities. NRDC was founded in 1970 and our people helped write some of America's bedrock environmental laws, including the Clean Water Act and many of the implementing regulations. Today, our team of more than 700 lawyers, scientists, economists, policy advocates, communications experts, and others work across the United States and the globe from our offices in Bozeman, Montana; Chicago; New York; San Francisco; Santa Monica; Washington, D.C.; and Beijing.

NRDC is seeking a Yale-NRDC Environmental Law Fellow to work in one of our U.S. offices.

Position Summary
NRDC is hiring a Legal Fellow for a two-year fellowship starting in August 2023. For the first year, (through August 2024), the Fellow will work at NRDC. During that time, the Fellow will focus on litigation or policy efforts to redress environmental and public health harms, such as air and water pollution, climate change, threats to endangered species, environmental injustice, and exposure to toxic chemicals. The Fellow will work in one of NRDC’s subject matter programs (Climate & Clean Energy; Nature; International; or Healthy People & Thriving Communities) and may represent NRDC and its members in federal or state court litigation or pursue policy initiatives in one or more of those areas. The Fellow may also collaborate with other environmental, labor, public health, and racial justice groups. The Fellow will work closely with, and be supervised by, experienced NRDC attorneys. The Fellow will be affiliated with one of NRDC’s major domestic offices (New York, San Francisco, Washington, D.C., Chicago, or Santa Monica), depending on the Fellow’s preference and NRDC’s needs.

For the second year (August 2024 through August 2025), the Fellow will work at Yale in New Haven, Connecticut, providing support for environmental law clinics, dual degree students, and events and activities relating to environmental law and policy. The Fellow’s primary responsibility will be to coordinate and co-teach the Environmental Protection Clinic alongside NRDC experts and a Yale faculty member. The Environmental Protection Clinic is an interdisciplinary clinic offered jointly between Yale Law School and the Yale School of the Environment. The Clinic creates teams of graduate students to work on substantial projects for outside organizations, particularly those with a significant environmental justice focus. Projects include litigation support, administrative advocacy, legislative drafting, strategic and communications planning, network building, scientific literature reviews, and more. In addition to being the primary coordinator of the Clinic, the Fellow will also have substantive supervision responsibilities for particular Clinic student projects. It is the intention of NRDC and Yale that those projects will include matters that the Fellow has already worked on during the first year of the Fellowship at NRDC.
• In the first year (August 2023 – August 2024), the Fellow will work in one of NRDC’s subject matter programs (Climate & Clean Energy; Nature; International; or Healthy People & Thriving Communities) and may represent NRDC and its members in federal or state court litigation or pursue policy initiatives in one or more of those areas.
• In the second year (August 2025 – August 2025), the Fellow will co-direct Yale’s Environmental Protection Clinic alongside the Clinic’s teaching team.