Lin Harmon

Professor Lin Harmon, Assistant Dean and Director of Environmental Law Programs, oversees the Center for Environmental Legal Studies and coordinates its work with that of the Energy and Climate Center, Land Use Center for Sustainable Development, Kheel Center for Resolution of Environmental Interest Disputes, Environmental Litigation Clinic and Pace Academy for Applied Environmental Studies. She also coordinates Pace's work with the International Union for the Conservation of Nature, of which the Center for Environmental Legal Studies is a voting member, and other national and international organizations. She collaborates with Assistant Dean Mark Shulman to oversee the studies of LLM students specializing in Environmental Law, Climate Change, and Land Use and Sustainable Development.

Prior to her academic career, Lin practiced law in Portland, Oregon law firms Hallmark Keating & Abbott and Gordon & Polscer, and served as executive director of Friends of Trees and later the Oregon Mediation Association, before finally bringing her accumulated experience into academic administration and teaching.

Lin’s career in academia began in 2000 at her alma mater, Lewis & Clark Law School, where she directed programs for international LLM students and for visiting international judges and law professors, an environmental law summer school, and an annual national environmental law conference program, and served as associate director and adjunct professor in the environmental law program.   She moved to her present position in fall 2011.

As a professor Lin has developed and taught courses in Environmental Negotiation and Mediation, Comparative Environmental Law from a Global Resources Perspective, and Introduction to US Environmental Law and Legal Study.  Her research interests are primarily focused on environmental conflict resolution and strategic approaches to the progressive development of environmental law.  She has organized numerous academic conferences on a wide variety of environmental law topics, and has spoken at conferences, seminars and law schools in Brazil, China, India, Nepal and South Korea.

Lin has served on numerous boards and commissions, including the Sustainable Portland Commission, the national Alliance for Community Trees, the Oregon State Bar Toxic Torts Section, the American Bar Association Competitions Committee and Negotiation Competition Subcommittee, and the American Association of Law Schools Section on Graduate Programs for Foreign Lawyers. 

She currently co-chairs the ABA Section on Energy, Environment and Resources Endangered Species committee, serves on ABA SEER’s Special Committee on Law Students, and represents the law school on the Pace Academy of Applied Environmental Studies Executive Committee and Academic Initiatives Council.