Position: Pace Law School, Haub Transactional Food and Beverage Law Clinic, Director/Managing Attorney (Deadline: June 30, White Plains, NY)

Elisabeth Haub School of Law at Pace University Seeks Transactional Food and Beverage Law Clinic Director

 

Introduction

The Elisabeth Haub School of Law at Pace University seeks to hire a Director for its new Transactional Food and Beverage Law Clinic, to start September 1, 2016.  This new clinic is part of a collaboration between the Elisabeth Haub School of Law at Pace University and the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) to serve the direct legal service needs of food justice organizations, farmers, and food entrepreneurs in the greater New York region by increasing capacity of the legal community to meet those needs through education of law students and training of lawyers. 

Legal services are vital to empower transitions to a more just and sustainable food system. In order to implement innovative practices, farmers, food and beverage entrepreneurs, and other activists must navigate a complicated legal landscape governing everything from food labels to estate planning.  The overall Pace-NRDC Food Law Initiative seeks both to provide some of these necessary to legal services and to train a larger community of lawyers to understand food, beverage, and agriculture issues.

Job Description

The Director/Managing Attorney of the Haub Transactional Food and Beverage Law Clinic will serve as lead attorney on all clinic projects.  He/she will work with Professor Margot Pollans, the Food Law Initiative Faculty Director, to identify clinic clients and overall clinic development.  The managing attorney will also work with NRDC and other key partners on appropriate clinic projects.  During the academic year, the managing attorney will supervise clinic students and will co-teach a weekly clinic seminar.  The managing attorney will take the lead in developing the curriculum for the clinic seminar.  The managing attorney will also assist with fundraising efforts and participate in teaching and planning for Food Law Initiative workshop programs.

Haub Transactional Food and Beverage Law Clinic

The clinic’s primary mission is to facilitate development of a socially, economically, and environmentally sustainable regional food system by providing direct legal services to individuals and organizations who seek to reform how we grow, distribute, purchase, and dispose of food.  The clinic will seek to achieve its mission by serving small- and medium-sized farmers implementing innovative and sustainable farming practices, mission-oriented food entrepreneurs, and food justice non-profit organizations.  Areas of critical need include access to land, access to capital, farm ownership succession and estate planning, eligibility for federal and state programs and benefits, and compliance with federal, state, and local regulatory law (including food safety law, labeling requirements, labor law, and zoning).  This mission-driven clinic will serve some of the currently unmet legal needs of the Northeast and mid-Atlantic regional food systems while also providing Pace law students with a unique opportunity for hands on transactional law experience in a growing area of law.

 

Pace-NRDC Food Law Initiative

As noted, the overall goal of the Pace-NRDC Food Law Initiative is to address the significantly direct legal service needs of food justice organizations, farmers, and food entrepreneurs in the greater New York region. In addition to the new Clinic, there are three other key components of the Initiative. First, each semester a Pace student will work at NRDC on regional food—and the first extern started in January 2016. Second, the initiative will also host an annual lecture focusing on critical food law topics; the first annual lecture was held on January 27, 2016.  And third, there will be a Workshop Series for law students and lawyers to build the capacity of the legal community to deal with food and agriculture issues.  For more information, see http://www.law.pace.edu/pace-nrdc-food-law-initiative.

For almost four decades, the Haub Environmental Law Program has provided an internationally acclaimed environmental legal education. Its dedicated faculty have been pioneers in developing and implementing environmental law and continue to serve as national and world leaders in the field. Its alumni are at work in law firms, government agencies, corporations, nonprofit organizations, and universities across the country and around the world. In recent years, the law school has expanded the environmental program to include food law and has hired two new full time faculty who teach and write in the area.  The Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) is an international nonprofit environmental organization with more than 2 million members and online activists. Since 1970, its lawyers, scientists, and other environmental specialists have worked to protect the world's natural resources, public health, and the environment.  NRDC is committed to fixing the broken national food system and rebuilding strong, equitable, and sustainable regional food systems.

Qualifications

·         3+ years transactional legal experience

·         New York State bar admission (or admission in an another state and willingness to sit for the New York bar at the first opportunity after hiring)

·         demonstrated fundraising ability

·         excellent analytical and writing skills and demonstrated success in advocacy and client management

·         significant experience working with food system issues and a commitment to the mission of the Food Law Initiative

·         teaching (or other supervisory) experience

 

Other Information

·         Start date: September 1, 2016

·         Position duration: two years with possibility for extension depending on funding

·         This is a full-time non-tenure track position and the Director will solely be an employee of the Elisabeth Haub School of Law at Pace University.

·         Salary will be commensurate with experience.  Competitive benefits package.

Pace is committed to achieving completely equal opportunity in all aspects of University life. Applications are encouraged from people of color, individuals of varied sexual and affectional orientations, individuals who are differently-abled, veterans of the armed forces or national service, and anyone whose background and experience will contribute to the diversity of the law school.  

To apply: Please submit a cover letter, CV, writing sample, and list of references by June 30, 2016 via careers.pace.edu/applicants/Central?quickFind=55840.

Any questions should be directed to Margot Pollans, mpollans@law.pace.edu.