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Michael Robinson-Dorn

Co-Associate Dean for Experiential Education

Clinical Professor of Law
Myron and Sonya Glassberg Chair in Environmental Law
Director, Environmental Law Clinic

Michael Robinson-Dorn

Expertise:

Natural Resources Law; Environmental Law; Clinical Legal Education; Advocacy

Background:

Professor Robinson-Dorn is the Founding Director of the UC Irvine Environmental Law Clinic, and Co-Associate Dean of Experiential Education at UC Irvine Law.  In addition to advising clients on a wide range of environmental and natural resources law matters, Professor Robinson-Dorn and his clinic students have appeared on behalf of clients in trial and appellate courts across the country.

Professor Robinson-Dorn’s recent classroom teaching includes Climate Justice, Natural Resources: the American West, and the Environmental Law Clinic. He has also previously taught courses in administrative law, public lands law, water law, and as part of a team teaching in UC Irvine’s Appellate Clinic.

Prior to joining UC Irvine in 2010, Professor Robinson-Dorn founded and directed the award-winning environmental law clinic at the University of Washington, where he was an Associate Professor of Law and an affiliate faculty with the Canadian Studies Center (Jackson School of International Studies), the Program on the Environment, and the College of the Environment.

Professor Robinson-Dorn has particular interests in public lands and cross-boundary environmental and natural resources law issues, clinical pedagogy, adult learning theory, and the teaching of creativity and justice in law schools. His early scholarship includes articles in the NYU Environmental Law Journal and the University of Washington Law Review, while his most recent scholarship and speaking events address the importance of teaching environmental and climate justice and the development of clinical networks.

Professor Robinson-Dorn earned his B.A. from the University of Victoria (Canada), and his J.D. from Cornell Law School. Prior to joining the academy in 2003, he was the Director of the Seattle City Attorney’s Environmental Protection Section, a trial lawyer with the U.S. Department of Justice (ENRD), an associate at a multi-national law firm in Washington D.C., an associate and partner at a regional law firm in Seattle, and a law clerk to Judge Morton A. Brody of the U.S. District Court for the District of Maine.  Professor Robinson-Dorn is also a former member of the Board of the Clinical Legal Education Association.

(Log in to view full course descriptions in the UCI Law Course Catalog)

  • William H. Rodgers, Jr., Michael Robinson-Dorn, Jennifer K. Barcelos & Anna T. Moritz, Climate Change: A Reader (2011).

Prof. Robinson-Dorn's Scholarly Papers on SSRN

  • Presenter, UC Irvine Law, A Case Study: Clinical Legal Education and Public Interest Lawyering, International Conference on Clinical Legal Education and Public Interest Lawyering, Seoul National University Law School Public Interest and Legal Clinic Center and Korea Bar Association (co-hosts, online) (2025).

  • Presenter, Toward Creating a Network, Environmental Law Clinic - NGO Collaboration: A Perspective from the U.S., Environmental Law Clinics and NGOs: Creating a Global Network, The University of Maryland Carey School of Law Environmental Law Program, the Center for Transnational Environmental Accountability and the Maryland Journal of International Law, Baltimore, MD (2024).

  • Presenter, Climate Justice: Meeting Students Where They Are and Joining Them on the Journey to Where They Demand to Be, 16th Global Legal Skills Conference, Bari, Italy (2024).

  • Presenter, Collaboration and the Development and Work of Clinics in the West: The Role of Place, Northwest Clinical Law Conference, Leavenworth, WA (2023).

  • Fall 2025: Appointment as inaugural Myron and Sonya Glassberg Chair in Environmental Law, UC Irvine School of Law.
  • January 2011: Named a 2011 Bellow Scholar with Scott Schumacher of University of Washington School of Law and Carroll Seron of UC Irvine for their project, Fellow Travelers, a systematic study of clinical teaching fellowships. The Bellow Scholars award, presented by the AALS Committee on Lawyering in the Public Interest, recognizes lawyer-scholars studying various aspects of the justice system with a focus on access to justice and the role of law and the university.