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Can anyone speculate on the future of environmental law for me? Many people I have talked to think it will continue to grow and be in high demand within the near future due to the world running out of many natural resources (water, electricity, oil etc.).

I will soon be deciding on law schools and would like to know where my best bet would be in environmental law. I would like to work on the corporate side of the field.

Lewis and Clark vs. Vermont?

Any other advice or opinions?

Thanks.

I would like to work on the corporate side of the field.

Lewis and Clark vs. Vermont?

T14 or bust. Large firms doing corporate work are not going to hire many from either school. Only go to L&C or Vermont for environmental law if you are doing public interest type environmental law and can go without accruing much debt.

These 2 schools have been ranked #1 and #2 in the US consistently for many years in environmental law. There is still little hope for being on the corporate side of environmental law?

Very few students from Lewis and Clark or Vermont are able to break into Corporate environmental law. Most who do enviro law from those schools will end up at non profit type places or in small firms paying a fraction of corporate law, starting around 40K for many. I also want to add that this field is not growing at any rapid rate or more so or less than any other field of law really. Beyond anecdotal evidence gleamed from conversations there is no evidence that it is a rapidly growing field or anything like that.

These 2 schools have been ranked #1 and #2 in the US consistently for many years in environmental law.

It doesn't matter. Big firms don't recruit at either. It's possible to get if you end up at the tip top of your class, but it would be extremely improbable.

Specialty rankings are almost 100% irrelevant. If you want to work at a biglaw firm or at a prestigious public interest group, no matter what the focus or specialty of the organization, the only two things that matter are overall school ranking/prestige and the school's geographic connections to the area you want to work in.

Would big law job prospects increase if I were to pursue the joint environmental law program vermont has with yale? I don't know much about it other than it is a 4 year program (2.5 years at vermont, 1.5 at yale)

Would big law job prospects increase if I were to pursue the joint environmental law program vermont has with yale? I don't know much about it other than it is a 4 year program (2.5 years at vermont, 1.5 at yale)

No, not really. You would still either need tip-top grades from the JD program.

Forget about Vermont if you want a shot at corporate law. There are exponentially more yale grads working on corporate environmental law than vermont grads.