Noah Hall, a Professor of Law at Wayne State University Law School and a frequent visiting professor at the University of Michigan Law School, will join the Wallace Stegner Center as our eighth annual Stegner Center Young Scholar. Professor Hall will be in residence October 31 and November 1, 2012. During his residency, he will deliver two talks, including the Stegner Center’s 8th Annual Young Scholar Lecture on “Interstate Groundwater Law: Equitable Apportionment of Transboundary Resources and Implications for the Snake Valley Aquifer Dispute” and a Downtown CLE on “The Law of the Great Lakes – Ninety Percent of North America’s Available Freshwater and Not a Drop for Utah.” He will also meet with faculty and students. His Young Scholar Lecture will be published in the environmental and natural resources law issue of the student-edited Utah Law Review.
“Professor Hall is rapidly ascending into the vanguard of water law scholars,” notes Bob Keiter, Director of the Wallace Stegner Center, “His work on the Great Lakes and other critical water issues is first-rate and deserves wide circulation.” When asked about his upcoming visit, Professor Hall said, “I am honored to visit the S.J. Quinney College of Law as the Wallace Stegner Center’s 8th annual young scholar. I am working closely with several Utah faculty members and have tremendous respect for their expertise and innovative ideas in natural resources law. I’m especially excited to meet the school’s students and alumni and learn more about their studies and work.”
Professor Hall teaches environmental and water law, and his research focuses on public and private water rights, transboundary water management and pollution, climate change adaptation, U.S.-Canadian environmental law, and citizen enforcement. He is a co-author of one of the leading environmental law casebooks, Environmental Law and Policy: Nature, Law, and Society (Aspen Publishers). Professor Hall is bringing his expertise on eastern water law and Great Lakes issues into his collaboration with S.J. Quinney law professors Bob Adler and Robin Craig on a brand new water law textbook, Modern Water Law: Private Property, Public Rights and Environmental Protection (Foundation Press, 2013). This textbook will pursue a contemporary approach to teaching Water Law by balancing eastern and western water law issues and by incorporating increasingly important subjects such as the intersection of water law with both the Endangered Species Act and the Clean Water Act and by addressing emerging and evolving issues such as the water-energy nexus and constitutional takings of water rights.
He is the author of a widely-cited article on Great Lakes water law, “Toward A New Horizontal Federalism: Interstate Water Management in the Great Lakes Region” (published by the Colorado Law Review) and has over a dozen articles published in many other leading journals, including the Harvard Environmental Law Review, the University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform, and Natural Resources & Environment (the American Bar Association’s environmental law journal).
Before joining the Wayne State University Law School faculty, Professor Hall taught at the University of Michigan Law School and was an attorney with the National Wildlife Federation, where he managed the Great Lakes Water Resources Program for the nation’s largest conservation organization. He later served as the founding Executive Director of the Great Lakes Environmental Law Center and created the Wayne State Environmental Law Clinic. Professor Hall worked in private practice for several years, representing a variety of business and public interest clients in litigation and regulatory matters. He has extensive litigation experience and numerous published decisions in state and federal courts, and continues to represent a variety of clients in significant environmental policy disputes.
Professor Hall graduated from the University of Michigan Law School and the University of Michigan School of Natural Resources and Environment, concentrating in environmental policy. After law school, he clerked for the Honorable Kathleen A. Blatz, Chief Justice of the Minnesota Supreme Court.
The Young Scholars Program, which is made possible by the generous support of the Cultural Vision Fund, is designed to recognize and establish a relationship with promising scholars early in their academic careers. Recipients are selected based on their accomplishments, the quality of their academic work, and their promise in the field of environmental and natural resources law and policy.
Past Stegner Center Young Scholars include: Professor Lesley McAllister, University of San Diego School of Law; Professor Jason Czarnezki, Vermont Law School; Associate Professor Barbara Cosens, University of Idaho School of Law; Associate Professor Kim Connolly, University of South Carolina School of Law (now at SUNY Buffalo); Associate Professor Jamison Colburn, Western New England College School of Law (now at Penn State); Associate Professor Amy Sinden, Temple University Beasley School of Law; and Associate Professor Reed Benson, University of Wyoming College of Law (now at New Mexico).