The Marshall-Wythe School of Law of the College of William and Mary has a long and vigorous tradition of research and education in all areas of the law, befitting its historic roots as the nation's oldest law school. The William and Mary Environmental Law and Policy Review is a part of that tradition. The Review, a student-run legal journal, is devoted to the discussion of relevant timely issues in environmental law and policy. It provides professionals, practitioners, and William and Mary law and policy students with a forum for the exploration of environmental law and policy issues through research, critical analysis, editing, and writing. The Review has successfully established itself as a journal specializing in the publication of professional and student articles on a wide range of environmental law topics. In addition, the Review is unique insofar as it publishes a summary of Fourth Circuit decisions that have a significant impact on environmental law. In a recent law review article, the Review was ranked among the top natural resource, environmental, and land use planning law journals in the nation.

The Review began in 1975 as a newsletter entitled Environmental Practice News and was published by the William and Mary Environmental Law Society. By 1990 the publication evolved into the William and Mary Journal of Environmental Law, a law journal with a national and international perspective in its coverage of environmental law issues. Most recently, the name was changed to the William and Mary Environmental Law and Policy Review to reflect an expanded vision of the publication's mission. The focus of the publication is to provide a forum for professors, scholars, practitioners, and students to publish articles on current topics of environmental law and to examine in a more focused manner the policy implications behind the law. This focus distinguishes the Review from others environmental law publications and allows the Review to offer a broader scope of articles.

The Review hosts a symposium each spring on an environmental policy topic of current interest. The symposium draws practitioners and academics from around the nation, as well as interested members of the local community, to participate in panel discussions on the symposium topic. Panelist articles are published in a special Symposium Issue of the Review. Recent symposium topics have covered watershed management, land use, and toxic tort litigation and ethics.

This year's symposium, "Emission Not Accomplished:  The Future of Carbon Emissions in a Changing World," was held on February 2, 2008.

Second-year students are encouraged to apply for membership following their spring semester. Candidates are selected based on a competitive process. Staff members perform cite-checking on portions of articles published by the Review. Cite-checking entails editing text, supplying missing authority, writing parenthetical explanations to clarify authority, critiquing authors' arguments, and checking citations. In addition, second-year staff members are required to write a Student Note. Successful completion of the Student Note process satisfies the law school writing requirement and confers one academic credit each semester. Student Notes are evaluated for future publication in the Review. Rising second- and third-year staff members also are encouraged to apply in the spring semester for positions on the editorial board, some of which confer academic credit. Selection is based on contributions to the Review, leadership and editorial capabilities.

»» Click to see our 2007-2008 Staff

»» Click to see our 2008-2009 Staff