Deborah Sivas
Luke W. Cole Professor of Environmental Law
Director, Stanford Environmental Law Clinic
Stanford Law School
Deborah A. Sivas has been practicing environmental law for nearly three decades and is the Luke W. Cole Professor of Environmental Law and Director of the Stanford Environmental Law Clinic at Stanford Law School. She holds a Doctor of Jurisprudence from Stanford Law School, with Distinction (1987), a Master of Science in Ecology from the University of California at Davis (1984), and a Bachelor of Arts in Biology and Philosophy from Occidental College, Magna Cum Laude (1982). Before returning to Stanford to start the Environmental Law Clinic in 1997, Professor Sivas served as a law clerk to U.S. District Court Judge Judith Keep in the Southern District of California, practiced as an environmental attorney in the San Francisco office of Heller, Ehrman, White & McAuliffe and in the Seattle office of Earthjustice, served as the founding legal director of The Lands Council, and started a small non-profit law practice in San Francisco.
Professor Sivas has written about and practiced extensively under the Endangered Species Act, the National Environmental Policy Act, the Clean Water Act, the Clean Air Act, the National Forest Management Act, the Federal Land Policy and Management Act, the Marine Mammal Protection Act, the National Historic Preservation Act, the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act, the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Conservation and Liability Act, and various California state law analogues. With her clinic students, she currently conducts primary research and represents non-governmental organizations in administrative proceedings and litigation in the areas of coastal and marine resource protection, climate change policy, freshwater and terrestrial habitat conservation, and public land management. Professor Sivas has also co-taught an interdisciplinary graduate course in the law, policy, and science of the California coast for the past 13 years.
Professor Sivas was recognized as a California Lawyer Magazine Attorney of the Year in 2008 for her work successfully challenging the Bush administration’s gas mileage standards for SUVs and light trucks. She currently serves on the Board of Directors for the Turtle Island Restoration Network, the Otter Project, and Earth Island Institute, and sits on the advisory board of the Climate Law Institute.