Robert L. Glicksman

Robert L. Glicksman J. B. and Maurice C. Shapiro Professor of Environmental Law at the George Washington University Law School. He is a member of the board of directors of the Center for Progressive Reform. Professor Glicksman has expertise in both of the two main branches of environmental law, pollution control and public natural resources law.  His recent research has focused largely on climate change issues, public natural resources issues, and the intersection of the two. He has taught three different environmental law courses -- a survey course covering both of these branches and more specialized courses in regulation of air and water pollution and toxic substances and hazardous waste regulation. He also regularly teaches property law (including regulatory takings cases involving environmental controls) and administrative law. Professor Glicksman has written on all of these topics for more than 25 years.

Professor Glicksman worked in private practice for four years after graduating from the Cornell Law School. He practiced for Cleary, Gottlieb, Steen & Hamilton, a nationally recognized law firm with an office in Washington, D.C., serving industrial clients in the energy and chemical industries. Professor Glicksman returned to private practice in 1993-94 while on leave from the University of Kansas. During that time, he worked for Lowenstein Sandler, a firm in Roseland, N.J. with a thriving environmental law practice, providing advice to clients on hazardous waste-related issues.

In addition to his experiences in private practice, Professor Glicksman served as a consultant to the Secretariat for the Commission for Environmental Cooperation. The CEC is an international organization established by the North American Agreement on Environmental Cooperation (the environmental side agreement to NAFTA) on issues pertaining to the resolution of international disputes among Canada, Mexico, and the United States on issues of both domestic and international environmental law. Professor Glicksman's role was to provide advice concerning the proper disposition of submissions by NGOs seeking a finding by the CEC that the signatory parties have failed to effectively enforce their environmental laws.

Professor Glicksman has published widely in the areas of pollution control, public natural resources management, and administrative law. His book Risk Regulation At Risk: Restoring a Pragmatic Balance (Stanford University Press 2003, with Sidney Shapiro), takes issue with the notion that economic efficiency should be the sole or even principal criterion governing the establishment and implementation of laws and regulations designed to reduce the health and environmental risks attributable to industrial activities. The authors urge instead a pragmatic approach to risk regulation that takes into account other values. Professor Glicksman is the lead co-author of an environmental law casebook, Environmental Protection: Law and Policy (Aspen Law and Business), now in its fifth edition (with Professors Markell, Buzbee, Mandelker, and Tarlock). Professor Glicksman is also the co-author (with George C. Coggins) of the leading treatise on public land and resource management, Public Natural Resources Law, (now in its second edition), as well as a student nutshell on the same subject, Modern Public Land Law (now in its third edition). He has also contributed a chapter entitled, “Federal Preemption by Inaction,” in Preemptive Choice: The Theory, Law, and Reality of Federalism’s Core Question, 2009, edited by fellow CPR Member Scholar William Buzbee, and “Environmental Law,” in Kansas Annual Survey, 2007.

Professor Glicksman's law review articles have been published in journals that include the Pennsylvania Law Review, the Northwestern University Law Review, the Duke Law Journal, the Vanderbilt Law Review, the Wake Forest Law Review, the Columbia Journal of Environmental Law, the Stanford Environmental Law Journal, the UCLA Journal of Environmental Law and Policy, the Virginia Environmental Law Journal, the Boston College Environmental Affairs Law Review, the William & Mary Environmental Law & Policy Review, the Oregon Law Review, the Loyola Law Review, The Administrative Law Review, the Chicago-Kent Law Review, and the Denver University Law Review. Two of Professor Glicksman's articles on judicial review of environmental decision-making (co-authored with Christopher Schroeder, a CPR Board member), have been singled out for recognition as the best in the field for a particular year and have been republished in the Land Use & Environment Law Review. A third article by Professor Glicksman on regulatory takings was also republished in that review. Another of Professor Glicksman's articles, on the Supreme Court and its treatment of environmental law issues, was designated in 1994 by Professor William Rodgers of the University of Washington as one of the 25 best environmental law articles ever written.

Professor Glicksman was instrumental in the expansion of the environmental law curriculum at the University of Kansas School of Law. He helped to establish a certificate program in environmental and natural resources law. He is now the J.B. & Maurice C. Shapiro Professor of Environmental Law at the George Washington University Law School.