Environmental Law at Yale Environmentalism at the Yale Law School has a long and distinguished history. Groundbreaking environmental ideas and thinking have emerged from Yale Law, with many graduates serving as prime movers in the legal environmental movement of the late sixties and early seventies. Many of them started important and influential nonprofit organizations such as Environmental Defense and the Natural Resources Defense Council, and staffed the then-nascent U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. The legal initiatives and reforms generated in that era have had an enormous impact on business, public health, the environment, and quality of life in the US, and have been copied or used as models for legal initiatives around the world. As the sole student organization at Yale Law School dedicated to the study, refinement, and promotion of environmental law, the Yale Environmental Law Association (YELA) carries on this proud tradition through a full program of education, debate, discourse and advocacy. 2007-2008 is shaping up to be a particularly active year of transition for YELA, as the organization continues to attract new members, begins to organize a major fall conference, and strengthen Yale Law's academic offerings in environmental law. Mission The Yale Environmental Law Association exists to: • Support, develop and train national and global leaders in environmental law; • Create and foster a dynamic space for environmental thinking and ideas; • Raise the profile of environmental issues across topic areas; • Forge collaborative interdisciplinary ties in order to solve environmental problems; • Seek, through environmental thinking and problem-solving, to serve the interests of the law school, the nation, and the global community, and; • Further the twin goals of protecting human health and dignity, and preserving the beauty and health of the national and global environment for future generations. NEW INITIATIVES CALENDAR ARCHIVES OFFICERS MISSION Yale Environmental Law Association