UW Environmental Law Clinic Wins National Award
The University of Washington School of Law's Environmental Law Clinic has won the Clinical Law and Education Association's Excellence in a Public Interest Case or Project Award for the Clinic's groundbreaking work relating to on the Exxon Valdez reopener clause, culminating in the Emmy-award winning film, The 3rd Trustee: Native Alaska and the Big Spill. The Emmy-award winning documentary has just been re-edited and released in a law school edition.
In notifying the law school of the award, the chair of the selection committee emphasized how impressed the committee was with the creative work involved in this project. http://www.cleaweb.org/awards/index.html
Prof. Michael Robinson-Dorn, the Clinic's Director, accepted the award during the AALS' annual Clinical Law Conference. Speaking to hundreds of colleagues from clinics across the country, Prof. Robinson-Dorn noted the important mission of law clinics in educating, training and inspiring the next generation of leaders and emphasized the important role of clinics providing representation to those most in need and for those that would otherwise little if any access to our justice system. He also encouraged and applauded the efforts of his colleagues from around the country to bring their clients' stories to wider audiences to effect change.
Prof. Robinson-Dorn also noted the essential and catalytic role that Prof. Bill Rodgers has played in matters relating to the Reopener Project, and noted that the documentary would not have been possible without of a creative team led by Seattle film-maker Michael Harris.