Wetlands Law: A Course Source

This is the revised, fifth edition of The Wetlands Law Course Source. It can be used as the primary text for a two credit seminar or as a supplemental text to cover wetlands material in an environmental law, natural resources law, or water law course. In addition, the administrative law chapter can be used as a supplement in a range of administrative law-related courses, such as environmental law, health law, labor law, immigration law, and others, to introduce basic administrative law concepts.

Unlike traditional casebooks or coursebooks, a “course source” includes resources to train students in all three apprenticeships identified by the Carnegie Foundation in its influential report on legal education, Educating Lawyers: Preparation for the Profession of Law. To address the knowledge apprenticeship, the Wetlands Law Course Source includes all of the traditional elements of a casebook or coursebook (cases, commentary, notes and questions) and includes several hypotheticals and problem exercises that focus on reinforcing wetlands law. In addition, as one of the many forms of summative and formative assessment included in the book, every chapter includes one or more CALI exercise as a “quiz” to reinforce the material covered in the chapter.  To address the skills apprenticeship, the Wetlands Law Course Source includes sixteen separate legal research exercises, several drafting exercises, a negotiation exercise, and an interviewing and counseling exercise. To address the values apprenticeship, the Course Source includes several professionalism scenarios, with questions related to the scenarios.

The Course Source also incorporates a wealth of audio/video materials and external links to bring the cases, disputes and materials in the book to life, including the audio for the oral arguments in most of the principal cases excerpted in the book, a Google map identifying the location of the properties involved in all of the principal cases excerpted in the book, decision documents, administrative orders, property maps, pictures, local media coverage and other background materials for the principal cases. While the principal cases have been edited, the book includes links to the full unedited versions of almost all of the cases in the book. Throughout each chapter, there are several “Resource” sections that identify reports, databases, audio or video materials, government documents, and other materials that are relevant to the topics covered in the chapter.  In addition, the book contains links to interviews that the author conducted regarding wetlands issues with attorneys who work with local communities and with the Department of Justice, the National Wildlife Federation, and the Environmental Council of the States. The links in the book have also been re-purposed as a web-based library of wetlands teaching resources, which is accessible at: https://www.envirolawteachers.com/wetlands-law-a-course-source.html  

191,707 Words, 509 Pages in Word

First Published March 2016
Revised December 2023 

A Teacher's Manual is available for faculty; please use your CALI credentials to login for access.