Professor of Law

A “life of the mind” type of person, Douglas Williams appreciates the heavily interdisciplinary nature of environmental law. “Environmental law opens up avenues of learning and understanding that may not have been apparent initially,” he says. “You have to know a little bit about economics, basic sciences, atmospheric chemistry, biology. It’s incredibly complex and fascinating.”

Professor Williams has explored environmental law from both sides of the table. While in private practice, his firm represented the Exxon Shipping Company in connection with the Valdez oil spill in Alaskan waters in 1989. Preferring to “wear the white hat,” Williams is now a consulting counsel to the Sierra Club and other environmental groups. In a recent case, he helped the Sierra Club convince the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals that the Environmental Protection Agency’s implementation of the Clean Air Act in St. Louis was improper and unlawful.

Much of Williams’ scholarship examines enforcement of the Clean Air Act and other environmental regulations. He has written extensively about the relationship between state and federal regulators and voluntary versus regulatory approaches to environmental protection. Professor Williams has several manuscripts in progress and his book, Federal Wetlands Regulation, will be published in 2004.

“Unlike many areas of law, environmental law really wasn’t born until the late 1960s,” he says. “We’ve only had about 40 years of experience in trying to fashion a body of legal principals and laws to reorient our relationship to natural resources.”

A former rock musician, carpenter and a graduate of Duke Law School, Professor Williams clerked for the Honorable Douglas H. Ginsburg on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. He became an associate with Covington & Burling in Washington, D.C., in 1988 at a time when the federal government began asserting claims for damages to natural resources. Professor Williams was among the first attorneys to develop an expertise in this area. His initial scholarship focused on the problem of placing monetary values on natural resources. While in private practice, Williams also represented clients pro bono in post-conviction death penalty proceedings and he maintains an interest in constitutional law, particularly congressional powers. He joined the School of Law in 1991.