Lin Harmon-Walker

Lin Harmon-Walker joined GW Law as Interim Director of the Environmental and Energy Law Program and Visiting Associate Professor of Law in Fall 2020. In this role, she oversees GW Law’s outstanding environmental law programs and courses, advises graduate student research and writing in cutting-edge topics, creates partnerships, collaborates on and hosts conferences and events, and speaks and writes on global and comparative environmental law issues. She also advises the Journal of Energy and Environmental Law.

Professor Harmon-Walker’s career has encompassed law practice, where she handled environmental insurance defense and coverage cases; nonprofit organization leadership as executive director of Friends of Trees, Oregon Mediation Association, and Greater Portland Sustainability Education Network; and academic management and teaching at top-ranked environmental law programs: Lewis & Clark Law School, where she served as Director of Graduate Programs in Environmental and Natural Resources Law, and Pace Law School, now Elisabeth Haub School of Law at Pace University, where she served as Assistant Dean for the Environmental Law Program.

Her community service has included chairing the American Bar Association (ABA) Section of Environment, Energy, and Resources Endangered Species Committee, active service on the ABA Competitions Committee and in Association of American Law School Environmental and Natural Resources sections, serving as a Commissioner on the Sustainable Portland Commission, helping establish Oregon State Bar’s Sustainable Future Section, and serving as Policies and Procedures chair for the national Alliance for Community Trees.

Since 2000, Professor Harmon-Walker has organized and managed numerous conferences and field studies for environmental and energy law professors in the areas of environment, renewable energy, climate change, and disaster management. Her academic courses have included UN Environmental Diplomacy, which placed students at Missions of Small Island Developing States at UN Headquarters in New York during the formulation of the UN Sustainable Development Goals; two courses she created at Lewis & Clark, Comparative Environmental Law from a Global Resources Perspective Seminar and Environmental Negotiation and Mediation Practicum, which teaches students to negotiate mutual gains solutions to contentious environmental, energy, and natural resources disputes. She also has supervised numerous student research projects and graduate theses in the field.

Her international experience has included training Brazilian energy officials and judges in environmental dispute resolution; soliciting partnerships and support for Motions at the International Union for the Conservation of Nature’s (IUCN’s) World Conservation Congress and leading a Pace delegation of professors and students to the Congress; chairing the international Jury for the Elisabeth Haub Environmental Diplomacy award; and guest lecturing on environmental law topics for law schools in India, Nepal, China, and Brazil. She is a member of the IUCN World Commission on Environmental Law and the United Nations Association.

Professor Harmon-Walker co-authored book, Comparative and Global Environmental Law and Policy, is available through Wolters Kluwer and serves as the text for her GW course of the same name.