Emory Law’s Environmental and Natural Resources Law program has established a new diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) program to promote broader diversity in the practice of environmental law. The Environmental Diversity Equity and Inclusion Initiative builds robust pathways for professional advancement. It offers unique opportunities to train, encourage, and incentivize students from diverse backgrounds to pursue careers in environmental law.

Emory University School of Law is dedicated to integrating diversity, pursuing equity, and achieving inclusion throughout the law school community. Emory Law Dean Mary Anne Bobinski says, “There is a striking lack of diversity in the environmental bar. Public interest organizations, governments, law firms, and corporations must diversify their environmental legal workforce. Law schools must play a role too, building a strong cohort of well-trained and diverse environmental lawyers.”

The initiative provides annual scholarships (up to $10,000 per student) and summer stipends (up to $5,000 per student) to Emory Law students who would contribute to a more diverse and inclusive environmental legal community. It also provides these students with opportunities to engage with prominent environmental attorneys, community and business leaders, government officials, and scholars through conferences, workshops, or other formal and informal convenings. The first round of stipends and scholarships will be awarded starting in the summer of 2023, for the stipends, and the 2023-2024 academic year, for the scholarships.

“Emory Law’s environmental diversity, equity, and inclusion initiative will provide students with the financial support and professional development opportunities they need to translate their interest in environmental law into an impactful career,” said Mindy Goldstein, director of Emory Law’s Environmental and Natural Resources Law Program. “I look forward to watching our scholarship and stipend recipients become successful environmental attorneys, shaping environmental law and policy throughout the country.”

Partnership with KMCL Funds Initiative

The scholarship and stipends are funded in part by a gift from the Kazmarek Mowrey Cloud Laseter LLP law firm (KMCL). KMCL founded this initiative at Emory to build a pipeline of well-trained and diverse environmental lawyers.

Rick Horder, one of the firm’s founding partners, says “KMCL is committed to increasing diversity in the environmental law bar, and we recognize that a key to long-term, concrete results is attracting the best and brightest diverse candidates to the field while they are in law school.”

Emory’s Environmental and Natural Resources Law Program is a top-ranked, comprehensive program dedicated to teaching, research, and public service in environmental law and policy. Led by Clinical Professor of Law Mindy Goldstein, who also directs the Turner Environmental Law Clinic, the program offers students extensive classroom, experiential, and extracurricular opportunities in environmental law. Building on Emory’s location in the dynamic business, governmental, and civil rights center of Atlanta, the program boasts more than a dozen course offerings, three full-time faculty members, outstanding adjunct professors from law firms and federal agencies, twenty externships, and the Turner Environmental Law Clinic.