You teach and research environmental law. As an Environmental Law Professor, you're educating future lawyers on environmental regulations, publishing research, and contributing to the legal framework that governs how we treat the planet.
Environmental law professors teach the legal frameworks governing pollution control, natural resource management, and environmental protection—Clean Air Act, Clean Water Act, NEPA, endangered species law, climate policy. The field is technically complex (it requires understanding regulatory science alongside law) and politically contested.
The scholarship tends to be interdisciplinary in ways that environmental law almost requires. The most interesting questions involve the intersection of environmental science, economics, administrative law, and policy. Whether you focus on doctrine, regulatory design, empirical analysis, or normative theory shapes your research agenda significantly.
People who tend to thrive have genuine passion for environmental protection and comfort with technical legal material. Environmental law involves understanding complex regulatory schemes and their scientific foundations, which requires more sustained technical investment than some legal fields. If you can communicate that complexity accessibly to students while also producing rigorous scholarship, environmental law teaching tends to be a professionally distinctive and personally meaningful career. The field's connection to urgent real-world challenges attracts committed scholars.
Where this role sits in the broader career landscape — and where it can take you.
Roles like this one sit within a broader occupational category. The numbers below reflect that full landscape — helpful for context, but your specific experience will depend on level, specialty, and where you work.
You teach and research environmental law. As an Environmental Law Professor, you're educating future lawyers on environmental regulations, publishing research, and contributing to the legal framework that governs how we treat the planet.
Median pay for an Environmental Law Professor is about $127K nationally, with the field ranging roughly from $58K to $208K depending on experience, employer, and metro (BLS).
Core skills for this role include Speaking, Active Listening, Reading Comprehension, Learning Strategies, and Instructing.
Most people in this role hold a doctoral degree.
Employment in this field is projected to grow about 2.2% through 2034, with roughly 22,800 people working in it today (BLS).
Closely related roles include Law Lecturer, Law Professor, and Law Instructor.
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