Natural Resources Law: A Place-Based Book of Problems and Cases, Fourth Edition

Bret Birdsong

Bret Birdsong is a professor of law at UNLV William S. Boyd School of Law. Professor Birdsong earned his J.D., summa cum laude, from the University of California, Hastings College of Law in 1993. After clerking for Judge Robert P. Patterson, Jr., of the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York, Professor Birdsong joined the United States Department of Justice, Environment and Natural Resources Division, as a trial attorney focusing on public land and natural resources litigation from 1994-2000. As an Ian Axford Fellow in Public Policy in 1998, he studied New Zealand's specialized Environment Court and served as a visiting fellow in the office of New Zealand's Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment. Professor Birdsong teaches Environmental Quality Law, Public Lands and Natural Resources Law, Administrative Law, Property and Civil Procedure. His research focuses on federal land and resources management.

Christine A Klein

Christine A. Klein is Chesterfield Smith Professor of Law at the University of Florida Levin College of Law, where she has taught since 2003. She received a B.A. from Middlebury College (Vermont), a J.D. from the University of Colorado Law School, and an LL.M. from Columbia University Law School. Klein began her career as a water rights litigator in the Colorado Office of the Attorney General. Her legal experience includes positions as a law clerk for the U.S. District Court, District of Colorado; as a law clerk for the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals Office of Staff Attorneys (San Francisco summer position); and as a clerk at Goodwin Proctor (formerly Shea & Gardner) in Washington, D.C. Prior to joining the UF Law faculty, Klein served on the faculty of Michigan State University College of Law and directed its environmental law certificate program. Klein teaches and writes in the areas of water law, natural resources law, and property. Her work includes more than thirty academic articles, and it has been cited in judicial and administrative opinions at both the federal and state levels. She is the author of two books in addition to Natural Resources Law: Property Law: Cases, Problems, and Skills (Aspen Publishers 2016) and Mississippi River Tragedies: A Century of Unnatural Disaster (NYU Press 2014, with Zellmer). Klein has served on two committees of the National Academy of Sciences, National Research Council, that studied sustainable water and environmental management in the California Bay-Delta, and she is a member scholar of the Center for Progressive Reform, based in Washington, D.C. Additional information is available here.

Eric Biber

Biber’s teaching and research interests as a Professor of Law at University of California, Berkeley are environmental law, natural resources law, energy law, land-use law, federal Indian law, administrative law, and property. Prior to joining Berkeley in 2006, he worked as a litigator in the Denver office of Earthjustice, a public-interest nonprofit organization specializing in public lands and other environmental cases. Biber taught public lands law as an adjunct faculty member at the University of Denver Sturm College of Law in fall 2005. He is a member of both the Colorado and California bars. Biber earned a master’s of environmental science with a focus in conservation biology from the Yale School of Forestry & Environmental Studies and a J.D. from Yale Law School. Following law school, Biber clerked for Judge Carlos Lucero of the 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Denver and Judge Judith Rogers of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit. Biber’s scholarship has appeared in a wide range of law reviews, including the University of Chicago Law Review, UCLA Law Review, Georgetown Law Journal, Vanderbilt Law Review, University of Colorado Law Review, Harvard Environmental Law Review, Environmental Law, NYU Environmental Law Journal, and Administrative Law Review. Biber has published in several leading peer-reviewed natural science and social science journals, including Society and Natural Resources, Frontiers in Ecology and Environment, Ecography, and Science. At Berkeley, Biber teaches courses in Property, Public Lands and Natural Resources Law, Biodiversity Law, Federal Indian Law, Energy Law, Land-Use Law, and Environmental Law and Policy. He also helps lead the Environmental Law Writing Seminar. He is the Director of the Environmental and Energy Law Programs at Berkeley. Additional information is available here.

Alexandra Klass

Alexandra B. Klass is a Distinguished McKnight University Professor at the University of Minnesota Law School. She teaches and writes in the areas of energy law, natural resources law, environmental law, tort law, and property law. Her recent scholarly work, published in many of the nation’s leading law journals, addresses regulatory challenges to integrating more renewable energy into the nation’s electric transmission grid, siting and eminent domain issues surrounding interstate electric transmission lines and oil and gas pipelines, and applications of the public trust doctrine to modern environmental law challenges. She is a co-author of Energy Law and Policy (West Academic Publishing 2015) (with Davies, Osofsky, Tomain, and Wilson), The Practice and Policy of Environmental Law (Foundation Press, 4th ed. 2017) (with Ruhl, Salzman, and Nagle), Energy Law: Concepts and Insights (Foundation Press 2017) (with Hannah Wiseman), and Natural Resources Law: A Place-Based Book of Problems and Cases (Aspen, 4th ed. 2018) (with Klein, Cheever, Birdsong, and Biber). Prior to her teaching career, Professor Klass was a partner at Dorsey & Whitney LLP in Minneapolis, where she specialized in environmental law and land use litigation. She received her B.A. from the University of Michigan and her J.D. from the University of Wisconsin Law School. She was a law clerk to the Honorable Barbara B. Crabb, U.S. District Court for the Western District of Wisconsin. She is a member scholar at the Center for Progressive Reform and a Fellow and Advisory Board member at the University of Minnesota’s Institute on the Environment. She served as Associate Dean for Academic Affairs at the University of Minnesota Law School from 2010-2012. She was a Visiting Professor at Harvard Law School in 2015. Additional information is available here.

Federico Cheever

Federico (Fred) Cheever (1957-2017) passed away suddenly doing what he loved—enjoying the Colorado landscape while on vacation with his family.

He was Professor of Law at the University of Denver Sturm College of Law. After graduating from Stanford University (B.A./M.A. 1981) and UCLA (J.D. 1986), and clerking for Judge Harry Pregerson of the United States Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit in Los Angeles (1986-1987), he came to Denver as an Associate Attorney for the Sierra Club Legal Defense Fund (1987-1989). With a few exceptions, he remained in Denver throughout his career. In 1990, he briefly commuted to Boulder to be a Research Fellow at the Natural Resources Law Center, University of Colorado School of Law. Between 1990 and 1993, he was an associate at Faegre & Benson in Denver, doing commercial and environmental litigation, including representation of regulated parties in disputes under the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA), the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act (CERCLA), and the Clean Air Act.. He began teaching at the University of Denver College of Law in 1993, specializing in Environmental Law, Wildlife Law, Public Land Law, Land Conservation Transactions, and Property. He briefly left Denver again in 2000 to be a Visiting Fellow at Queen Mary and Westfield College, University of London. Professor Cheever served as the Hughes/Rudd Research Professor at the University of Denver College of Law in 2002. During summer 2005, he served as a Visiting Professor at Northwestern Law School, Lewis & Clark College. In 2007, he served as a visiting research fellow at the Australian National University in Canberra, ACT. From 2005-2007 he served as an adjunct professor at the Colorado School of Mines, teaching Environmental Law. In 2006 he was selected DU Law Star for excellence in teaching. Professor Cheever wrote extensively about the Endangered Species Act, federal public land law, and land conservation transactions. Over the years, he represented environmental groups in cases under the Endangered Species Act, the National Forest Management Act, the National Environmental Policy Act, the Wilderness Act, and a number of other environmental laws. He served as the Associate Dean for Academic Affairs at the College of Law from 2009-2013. Additional information is available here