Georgetown Law Establishes the Brennan Professorship

Georgetown University Law Center Interim Dean Judith Areen is pleased to announce the appointment of Georgetown Law Professor Richard Lazarus to the newly established Justice William J. Brennan, Jr. Professorship. He was formally installed in a ceremony at the Law Center on February 3.

"Richard Lazarus is one of the nations foremost Supreme Court scholars. He is ideally suited to hold this professorship," said Areen. "We are deeply grateful to the generous alumnus who endowed the professorship in honor of his friend, Justice Brennan."

Lazarus has served on the Georgetown law faculty since 1996, where he teaches courses on environmental law, the U.S. Supreme Court and torts.

Lazarus obtained a B.S. in chemistry and a B.A. in economics from the University of Illinois. After graduating from Harvard Law School, he served twice at the U.S. Department of Justice, first as an attorney with the Environment and Natural Resources Division (1979-1983) and later as an assistant to the Solicitor General (1986-1989). He began his academic career at Indiana University-Bloomington (1983-1986) and joined the law school faculty of Washington University in St. Louis in 1989.

Lazarus is the faculty director of the Law Centers Supreme Court Institute, which conducts a wide variety of programs designed to promote a deeper understanding of the Court among law students, law faculty, the legal profession and the nation. The Institutes signature moot court program, provides rigorous practice sessions for advocates in about 95 percent of the Courts cases on a strictly non-partisan, pro bono basis.

Lazarus primary areas of legal scholarship are environmental and natural resources law, with particular emphasis on constitutional law and the Supreme Court. He has published articles on a wide variety of topics, as well as two books, The Making of Environmental Law (U. Chicago 2004), and Environmental Law Stories (Aspen Press 2005, co-edited with O. Houck).

Lazarus has won the faculty teaching award at both Washington University and Georgetown University, and has been a visiting professor of law at Columbia University, Harvard University, Northwestern University, UCLA, University of San Diego and University of Texas. In recent summers, he has been co-teaching a course with the Chief Justice of the United States on the history of the Supreme Court.

Lazarus continues to practice before the Supreme Court. He has represented the United States, state and local governments, and environmental groups in the Supreme Court in approximately 40 cases and has presented oral argument in 13 of those cases. In lower courts, he represented the United States in U.S. v. Chem-Dyne, the first case to establish joint and several liability under the federal Superfund law, and in the California Supreme Court case, National Audubon Society v. Superior Court of Alpine County, applying the public trust doctrine to Mono Lake.

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