Pace University’s Elisabeth Haub School of Law Launches Food and Beverage Law Clinic

Pace University’s Elisabeth Haub School of Law has received a generous grant of $400,000 from alumnus Rob Sands, and from Constellation Brands, where Mr. Sands is CEO and President. The gift will sponsor a two-year pilot of a new Food and Beverage Law Clinic that will provide transactional legal services to farmers, community and grassroots groups, and mission-oriented food and beverage entrepreneurs.

The Clinic is part of a broader collaboration between Pace Law and the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) to expand the capacity of the legal community to provide direct services to individuals and organizations seeking to build a more sustainable and healthy regional food system. In order to implement innovative practices, farmers, food entrepreneurs, micro brewers and distillers, and other activists must navigate a complicated legal landscape governing everything from labelling to estate planning.

“Many businesses in the growing ‘farm to table’ economy start out in someone’s kitchen, backyard or even roof garden,” said David Yassky, Dean of the Elisabeth Haub School of Law at Pace University. “When these business grow, new legal issues emerge and often these entrepreneurs can’t afford the legal help they need. Our clinic will fill that gap. We are enormously grateful to our alumnus, Rob Sands, for his support and vision for this project.”

“I am thrilled to be supporting this important endeavor, which is the first of its kind in this region,” said Rob Sands, CEO of Constellation Brands and an alumnus of Pace Law. “I am particularly gratified to be able to help farmers and new food and beverage businesses get the legal help they need while also supporting students from my alma mater, Pace Law.”

Professor Margot Pollans, the Faculty Director of the Pace-NRDC Food Law Initiative will direct the Clinic. “We are very excited that this gift will make the clinic possible,” says Professor Pollans. “Launching the clinic was a primary goal of the Initiative from the start. We see it as a critical way for the legal community to help in the development of sustainable food economies.”

“The Haub Environmental Law Program is renowned for the environmental law and advocacy education that it provides. We have now expanded our expertise and faculty in the fast‐growing area of food law,” said Professor Jason J. Czarnezki, Associate Dean and Executive Director of the program. “The creation of a food law clinic is the next and exciting step in not only training our students to be excellent lawyers, but also addressing the direct legal service needs of small farmers, craft beverage makers, local food entrepreneurs, and food justice organizations.”

“This path-breaking clinic will provide much needed legal help to farmers and food revolutionaries in the region,” said Mark A Izeman, Senior Attorney and Director of the New York Program at NRDC. “It will also create a national food law model that others can replicate across the country. Together, NRDC and Pace are training a new generation of lawyers that will help rebuild our broken food systems, and cultivate stronger sustainable farming economies.”