Emily Hammond

Professor Hammond is a nationally recognized expert in energy law, environmental law, and administrative law. A former environmental engineer, Professor Hammond brings technical fluency to cutting-edge issues at the intersection of law, science, and policy. Their scholarship focuses on the regulatory process, the responses of various legal institutions to scientific uncertainty, electricity markets, climate change, and the law of water quality.

Professor Hammond's articles have appeared in numerous top-ranked journals, including the Columbia Law Review, the Duke Law Journal, the Michigan Law Review, and the Vanderbilt Law Review. They are a co-author of one of the nation’s leading energy law texts, Energy, Economics and the Environment, and the environmental law text Environmental Protection: Law and Policy, in addition to a variety of book chapters and shorter works. Professor Hammond’s current projects include an examination of administrative law in regional and local offices, and a book project that explores how federal energy and environmental laws have enabled, shaped, and hindered grassroots resistance movements in Central Appalachia.

Committed to service leadership, Professor Hammond held a presidential appointment at the Department of Energy during the 2021-22 academic year, where they served as Deputy General Counsel for Litigation, Regulation, and Enforcement; and Deputy General Counsel for Environment and Litigation. Previously, Professor Hammond served as Senior Associate Dean for Academic Affairs at GW Law, and was awarded the Distinguished Dean Award by the graduating classes of 2020 and 2021. An energetic and dedicated teacher, they were also awarded the Distinguished Faculty Service Award by the graduating class of 2018.

An elected member of the American Law Institute, Professor Hammond has served as a public member of the Administrative Conference of the United States and is a member-scholar with the Center for Progressive Reform. They are a past Chair of the American Association of Law Schools’ Administrative Law Section and currently serve on the Executive Committee for the Section on Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity. They have consulted on various energy, environmental, and administrative law matters, authored amicus briefs, and testified before Congress on these issues. Professor Hammond actively collaborates with other researchers from a variety of disciplines and is a past Distinguished Young Environmental Scholar recipient at the Stegner Center, University of Utah. 

Prior to joining the GW law faculty, Professor Hammond served on the faculties at Wake Forest University and the University of Oklahoma College of Law, where they served as Associate Dean for Academic Affairs and Associate Director of the Law Center. They have visited at the University of Texas, Florida State University, and the University of Georgia. Before entering academia, Professor Hammond practiced law with Bondurant, Mixson & Elmore in Atlanta, Georgia, and clerked for Judge Richard W. Story of the US District Court for the Northern District of Georgia.

View Professor Hammond’s Scholarship

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