ENVIRONMENTAL LAW PRACTICUM:
COURSE SYLLABUS

University of Houston Law Center
Spring 2019

Professor Tracy Hester
Office: 142 TUII
Office hours: Tuesdays 1:30 pm - 4 pm or
by appointment (including evenings)
(713) 743-1152 (work)
(713) 775-8874 (cell)
tdheste2@central.uh.edu

Course Subject Matter: This course will overview key areas of practice within environmental law such as regulatory counseling and permitting, civil enforcement, criminal liability, private litigation over environmental contamination, policy advocacy, and environmental aspects of commercial transactions. Each lecture topic will be paired with a separate presentation by a guest speaker who practices in that area, and who will provide examples of live projects and cases for class review. These speakers may include the Harris County Attorney (civil enforcement), the Galveston Bay Foundation (permitting), the Harris County District Attorney (criminal), the Audubon Society (policy advocacy) and others.

Course objectives:   To prepare students to counsel clients on environmental law matters and ways to assure or enforce environmental compliance strategies and obligations.

Textbook: I will provide a collection of selected readings to students.  I will also try to have these materials posted on a class website.

Office Hours: My office is at TUII 142, and my office hours are on Tuesdays at 1:30 pm to 4 pm. Many of you will likely have schedule conflicts based on other classes or daytime work obligations, so I'm also happy to schedule a meeting anytime if you have difficulty getting to my office during those hours.  I can also rely extensively on e-mail queries to help students.

Grading and Explanation: Final grades will be based on performance on work projects provided by speakers, class participation, and brief papers to accompany special guest sessions. While classroom participation is very important, as per University policy I can only adjust a student's grade up or down one notch (e.g., from a B to a B+) on the basis of class participation.

I will follow the Law Center attendance policy.  You will not be allowed to take the final examination unless you attend 80% of the classes.  Excused absences will be liberally granted. 

Grading and Explanation: Final grades will be based on class participation, in-class assignments, work product for clients, class presentations of that final work product at the end of the semester, and participation in discussions with special guest visitors to the class. If you wish, some of my students have also provided a self-evaluation of their own work and their project team members - but this additional input is wholly voluntary.

Attendance:  I will follow the Law Center attendance policy. You will not be allowed to take the final exam unless you attend 80% of the classes. While I will liberally grant excused absences, I cannot grant an excused absence that will drop your total attendance below 80 percent.  Please contact me immediately if personal circumstances will create attendance problems for you.

SCHEDULE