Hello 1Ls,

Welcome to law school! The UBC Environmental Law Group (ELG) seeks to connect students with opportunities to learn about environmental law and engage with environmental justice issues, including Indigenous land sovereignty, resource extraction and mining justice, waste management, and climate change. Our events provide opportunities for learning, activism, relationship building, and fun.

Our main event annually is the Environmental Law Negotiation Competition — despite the name, there is no need to know anything about environmental law! Most of the participants are 1Ls and it is a fun way to try out some advocacy skills early on and practice speaking well before your 1L moot.

We also hold several smaller events throughout the year. In the past, we held a clothing swap fundraiser in support of Indigenous Climate Action and co-hosted panel discussions with Students for Mining Justice and the Centre for Law and the Environment, headquartered here at Allard. We also hosted a career panel, where guest speakers from Ecojustice, Lawson Lundell, West Coast Environmental Law, BC Hydro, and Young Anderson shared their experiences as practicing environmental lawyers and gave advice to students.

This year will look different, as we adjust to remote learning to promote everyone’s safety during COVID-19. We are still excited to be planning the Negotiation Competition and Career Panel, but these will be done online. We will give updates on these events and any others via our Facebook Page (UBC Environmental Law Group), so make sure you follow us there to stay up to date! You can also follow us on Twitter, @EnvLawUBC.

Allard has several great environmental and natural resource law courses as well, which our members will be happy to talk about, but until then, we hope you participate in some events and meetings and stay ‘rooted’ through your first year.

We’re looking forward to meeting you soon!

Your 2020 Co-Chairs,

Christine and Olivia