Law Commons^™

Wilderness, Luck & Love: A Memoir And A Tribute, Neil Kagan

Michigan Journal of Environmental & Administrative Law

In 1984, Congress preserved 8.2 million acres of roadless federal lands as "wilderness," nearly matching the acreage set aside in the Wilderness Act of 1964. Congress also created the most new wilderness areas ever in a single year, by far. Wilderness Connect, Number of Wilderness Areas Designated by Year, https://wilderness.net/practitioners/wilderness-areas/summary-reports/wilderness-areas-designated-by-year.php.

I brought two lawsuits in 1983 that proved to be the catalyst responsible for breaking the years-long impasse that had previously stymied the protection of these pristine wildlands. The lawsuits also pushed Congress to preserve more wildlands as wilderness than it would have otherwise.

This article describes the lawsuits, …

The Legacy Of Professor Joe Sax, Fred Krupp

Michigan Journal of Environmental & Administrative Law

I grew up as the environmental movement did, in the 1960s and 1970s. In college at Yale, engineering professor Charlie Walker became my mentor and taught me that there are practical solutions for almost all environmental problems. This hopeful point of view inspired me to devote myself to the subject, first as an academic pursuit. As I neared graduation and was trying to decide on a path, Professor Walker handed me a book: Defending the Environment by Joseph Sax.1 That book was visionary in its description of private citizens’ ability to protect and defend the environment through the legal system. …

Joseph Sax, A Human Kaleidoscope, Zygmunt Plater

Michigan Journal of Environmental & Administrative Law

Probably more than any other person most of us will ever have the opportunity of knowing, Joe Sax was kaleidoscopic in the way he projected his mind and lived his life as a scholar, teacher, and citizen seer. Shifting his analytical gaze from challenging context to challenging context, he repeatedly threw rich new patterns of perceptive light, thoughts broad and deep, onto a remarkable range of puzzles. Joe’s ability to think broadly and deeply influenced and reshaped the way that his students, friends, colleagues, and readers understood the intricacies, beauty, and challenges of the world around them. Others in this …

Making Ideas Matter: Remembering Joe Sax, Mark Van Putten

Michigan Journal of Environmental & Administrative Law

Joe Sax made his ideas matter. He had consequential ideas that shaped an entire field—in his case, environmental law—both in theory and in practice. His scholarship was first rate and has enduring significance in academia, as evidenced by the fact that two of his law review articles are among the 100 most frequently cited articles of all time. Others are more competent to review the importance of his scholarship; my experience in environmental advocacy is more pertinent to evaluating his impact on environmental policymaking. Here, his ideas have had a greater impact than any other legal academic. As the New …

Joseph L. Sax: The Realm Of The Legal Scholar, Nina A. Mendelson

Michigan Journal of Environmental & Administrative Law

It is one of my great regrets that I never really got to know Professor Joseph Sax personally. I joined the faculty at the University of Michigan Law School well over a decade after Sax departed our halls for the University of California at Berkeley’s Boalt Hall School of Law. I met him on one occasion several years ago, when he gave an engaging workshop at Michigan on governance issues around Colorado River water allocation, complete with a detailed map of the watershed. I am exceptionally fortunate, however, to occupy a chair named for him. This is not only because …