Robert R. M. Verchick

Gauthier-St. Martin Eminent Scholar Chair in Environmental Law
A.B., 1986, Stanford University (with honors and distinction); J.D., 1989, Harvard Law School (cum laude)

Professor Verchick, a nationally recognized expert in environmental law, heads Loyola's Center for Environmental Law and Land Use. A board member and research scholar with the Center for Progressive Regulation in Washington, D.C., he has testified on Capitol Hill several times on issues related to environmental regulation and Hurricane Katrina. He has also served as a peer reviewer for the White House and for the National Academy of Sciences. In 2002, Professor Verchick represented the University of Missouri's Center for the City at the World Summit on Sustainable Development in Johannesburg, South Africa.

Professor Verchick came to Loyola after serving eleven years on the law faculty of the University of Missouri at Kansas City. Before that, he practiced environmental law at Riddell, Williams, Bullitt & Walkinshaw (now Riddell Williams P.S.) in Seattle, Washington. He has taught as a visitor at Beijing University (China), Aarhus University (Denmark), Lewis & Clark College, and Seattle University. He has received teaching awards from Harvard University, Seattle University, and the University of Missouri at Kansas City.

Professor Verchick's scholarship focuses on environmental policy as it relates to constitutional law, distributional fairness, risk management, and, most recently, environmental disaster. His work has appeared in the California Law Review, the Southern California Law Review, the Harvard Environmental Law Review, and the Stanford Environmental Law Journal, among other places. He is the co-author of Feminist Theory: A Primer (NYU Press 2006) (with Nancy Levit) and the author of several book chapters on environmental topics. He is currently writing on a book about environmental disaster and climate change for Harvard University Press.

E-mail: verchick@loyno.edu
Office Phone: 504-861-5472

Publications

Academic

• Steinbeck, Ecology, and Law, in John Steinbeck's America's [working title] (Robert DeMott & Susan Shillinglaw, eds. 2005) (forthcoming)
• Lost in Translation:  The Case Against Cost-Benefit Analysis (reviewing Frank Ackerman & Lisa Heinzerling, Priceless:  On Knowing the Price of Everything and the Value of Nothing (2004)), -- Ecology Law Quarterly (University of California at Berkeley) ---- (2005) (forthcoming)
• Unique Property Annotated Bibliography,  18 Journal of the American Academy of Matrimonial Lawyers 589 (2004) (with Nancy Levit)
• The New Progressive Agenda:  Repaying our Debt to the Future (Carolina Press 2004) (with scholars from the Center for Progressive Regulation)
• Feminist Theory and Environmental Justice,inNew Perspectives on Environmental Justice: Gender, Sexuality and Activism, (Rachel Stein, ed., Rutgers University Press 2004)
• Toward Normative Rules for Agency Interpretation:  Defining Jurisdiction under the Clean Water Act, 55 Alabama Law Review 845 (2004)
• Let the People Speak:  Notice and Comment Rulemaking (Lessons from the Controversial New Source Review Proposal of the Clean Air Act),  34 Environmental Law Reporter 10115 (Environmental Law Institute 2004) (with Victor Flatt,  Michael M. O'Hear, and Mark Squillace)
• Can Local Government Save the Global Commons?  Lessons from the Johannesburg Summit, 3 Stanford Agora (2003), available at www.law.stanford.edu/agora
• Why the Global Environment Needs Local Government:  Lessons from the Johannesburg Summit, 35 Urban Lawyer 471 (2003)
• Beyond the “Courts of the Conqueror” :  Balancing Private and Cultural Property Rights under Hawaiian Law, 5 The Scholar:  St. Mary's Law Review on Minority Issues 201 (2003) (with M. Casey Jarman)
• Steinbeck's Holism: Science, Literature, and Environmental Law, 22 Stanford Environmental Law Journal 1 (2003) (lead article)
• Foreword:  Cities on the Frontline, 34 Urban Lawyer 557 (2002)
• Free Speech, Toxic Tort, and the Battle of Sugar Creek, 70 UMKC Law Review 245 (2001) (lead essay)
• A Survey of Federal Agency Response to President Clinton's Executive Order No. 12898 on Environmental Justice (with Denis Binder, et al.), 31 Environmental Law Reporter 11133 (Environmental Law Institute 2001) (lead article)
  reprinted in Clifford Rechtschaffen and Eileen Gauna, Environmental Justice (Carolina Press 2002)
• Feathers or Gold?  A Civic Economics for Environmental Law, 25 Harvard Environmental Law Review 95 (2001) 
  ranked among top thirty environmental law articles of the year by Land Use and Environment  Law Review (West Publishing)
  reprinted in Sophisticated Sabotage (Thomas McGarity, Sid Shapiro, & David Bollier, eds. 2004) (Environmental Law Institute) (forthcoming)
•  A New Species of Rights? 89 California Law Review 207 (2001)
• Environmental Law, The Pre-quel,  3 Jurist:  Books-on-Law (May 2000), available at http://jurist.law.pitt.edu/lawbooks/revmay00.htm#Verchick (invited)
• Dust Bowl Blues:  Saving and Sharing the Ogallala Aquifer, 14 Journal of Environmental Law & Litigation 13 (University of Oregon 1999) (invited) (lead essay)
• Critical Space Theory:  Keeping Local Geography in American and European Environmental Law, 73 Tulane Law Review 739 (1999) (lead article)
  ranked among top thirty environmental law articles of the year by Land Use and Environmental  Law Review (West Publishing)
• The Commerce Clause, Environmental Justice, and the Interstate Garbage Wars, 70 Southern California Law Review 1239 (1997) (lead article). 
  ranked among top thirty environmental law articles of the year by Land Use and Environmental  Law Review (West Publishing)
• In a Greener Voice:  Feminist Theory and Environmental Justice, 19 Harvard Women's Law Journal 23 (1996) (lead article)
• Engaging the Spectrum:  Civic Virtue and the Protection of Student Voice in School-Sponsored Forums, 24 John Marshall Law Review 339 (1991)

Opinion

• Opinion, An Earth Summit Scorecard, International Society for Human Rights (Australia) Newsletter, Oct. 2002
• Op-Ed, Summit Produces Global Benefits, Kansas City Star, Sept. 24, 2002
• Op-Ed, “A Civil Action” Shows How Community Is Often Forgotten,Kansas City Star, Feb. 4, 1999

Fiction

• Bears, Kansas City Voices, Fall 2004 (short story) (forthcoming)

Presentations & Conferences (Selected)

International

• Major Group Delegate (representing UMKC's Center for the City), World Summit on Sustainable Development (WSSD), Johannesburg, South Africa (August-September 2002).
• Lecture, “Law and the Global Environment,” China University of Politics and Law, Beijing, China (June 2002).
• Presenter, “The American Environmental Justice Movement,” Schloss Leopoldskron Center, Salzburg, Austria (October 1999).
• Faculty Colloquy, “Geographic Space and Environmental Law in the United States and the European Union,” Oslo University, Oslo, Norway (December 1997). 
• Presenter, “Comparing Environmental Liability Law with Products Liability Law in the U.S.,” European Law Students' Association, Aarhus University, Århus, Denmark (December 1997). 
• Presenter, “The Commerce Clause, Environmental Justice, and the Interstate Garbage Wars” at Centre for Social Science Research on the Environment (CeSaM), Århus, Denmark (November 1997).  
• Invited Participant, Conference on Liability for Pollution and Other Environmental Impact, Nordic Council on Doctoral Studies (NorFa), Uppsala, Sweden (September 1997)

National

• Presenter, “Why the Global Environment Needs Local Government:   Lessons from the Johannesburg Summit,” Rocky Mountain Mineral Foundation, Conference of Natural Resources Law Teachers, Grand Junction, CO (June 2003)
• Panelist, “Property and the Role of Land-Based Cultural Heritage--Global and National” (with Casey Jarman), Association of American Law Schools Annual Meeting, Washington, D.C. (January 2003)
• Panelist, “Johannesburg and Beyond: Words into Action for Development and the Global
• Environment,” Harvard Law School, Cambridge, MA (October 2002)
• Presenter, “Steinbeck, Ecology, and Law,” John Steinbeck's Americas:  A Centennial Conference, Hofstra University, Hempstead, NY (March 2002)
• Presenter, “A Civic Economics for Environmental Law,” Conference on Public Interest Environmental Law at University of Oregon, Eugene, OR (March 2001).
• Presenter, “Dustbowl Blues:  Saving and Sharing the Ogallala Aquifer,” at Journal of Environmental Law and Litigation Symposium on Water Law/Conference on Public Interest Environmental Law, University of Oregon, Eugene, OR (March 1999). 
• Faculty Colloquy, “The Commerce Clause, Environmental Justice, and the Interstate Garbage Wars,” University of Washington, Seattle, WA (May 1998). 
• Presenter, “Environmental Liability and Toxic Torts in the U.S. and the European Union,” at Conference on Public Interest Environmental Law, University of Oregon, Eugene, OR (March 1998).
• Faculty Colloquy, “The Commerce Clause, Environmental Justice, and the Interstate Garbage Wars,” Seattle University School of Law, Tacoma, WA (February 1998).   
• Presenter, “In a Greener Voice:  Feminist Theory and Environmental Justice” at Conference on Public Interest Environmental Law, University of Oregon, Eugene, OR (March 1996). 
• Chair, Co-ordinator, and Panel Participant, “Environmental Justice,” Crit Networks' Conference on Class and Identity, Georgetown University Law Center and American Law School, Washington, D.C. (March 1995)
• Local (Kansas City and UMKC)
• Panelist, “Arthur Miller Unravels Ethical Dilemmas for Today's Lawyer,” National Practice Institute and UMKC School of Law, Kansas City, MO (May 2002) 
• Presenter, “The Fourth Trial of Oscar Wilde” (with Doug Linder); in conjunction with the Missouri Repertory Theater's production of Moises Kaufman's Gross Indecency:  The Three Trials of Oscar Wilde.  Missouri Repertory Theater, Kansas City, MO (February 2000).
• Presenter, “Women and the Global Environment,” 1995 Starr Symposium on the United Nations Fourth World Conference on Women:  Thinking Globally, Acting Locally,  UMKC, Kansas City, MO (November 1995).
• Commentator, Planned Parenthood and UMKC's Women's Studies Program Discussion Panel, Kansas City, MO (October 1995).  Commented on presentation by Sarah Weddington on subject of abortion rights and other current legal issues of importance to women.

Media

• “Up-to-Date” KCUR (National Public Radio affiliate) (May 2004).  Appeared as a guest on hour-long talk show to discuss the role of women in grassroots environmental activism.
• “Walt Bodine Show,” KCUR (National Public Radio affiliate) (May 2001).  Appeared as a guest (with Professors Barbara Glesner-Fines, Kris Kobach, Nancy Levit) on hour-long talk show to discuss National Law Week.
• “Walt Bodine Show,” KCUR (National Public Radio affiliate) (January 1997).  Appeared as a guest (with Professor Nancy Levit) on hour-long talk show to discuss David Mamet's play Oleanna and the issue of sexual harassment