NY State Bar Assn. Environmental Law Section names fellowship

Daily Record (Rochester, NY), Mar 4, 2005 by Staff

The New York State Bar Association's Environmental Law Section announced that four minority law students have been selected to receive fellowships in environmental law for employment this summer.

The 2005 fellowship recipients are:

u Harven V. De Shield is a first-year student at the University at Buffalo Law School. He is also pursuing a Ph.D. in biochemistry from the university's college of Arts and Sciences, where he is a Schomburg Fellow at the University. De Shield is a cum laude graduate of Appalachian State University where he majored in biology.

u Vanessa Facio-Lince is a second-year law student at Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law in New York. She is a summa cum laude graduate of the University at Albany where she majored in political science. From January - May 2003, she participated in the state Assembly internship program, where she served as an assistant to the director of the Environmental Conservation Committee.

u Amy J. Choi is a second-year student at Washington University School of Law in St. Louis. She received her undergraduate degree in classical civilization from the University at Binghamton. Last summer, she clerked for Civil Court Judge John S. Lansden of Staten Island. Choi is writing her law review note on the Clean Air Act and its applicability to livestock feedlot emissions.

u Sharonda C. Williams is a first-year student at the University of Pittsburgh School of Law. A graduate of the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, Williams majored in legal studies. She has worked for two summers with the National Wildlife and Fisheries Service on conservation related projects.

We are pleased to be able to provide additional opportunities to minority law students with an interest in this field, said NYSBA President A. Kenneth G. Standard. Environmental law was born in this country long before it was named. There were statutes to protect the ecology, designate national parks, regulate land use and protect forests, for example.

The students will each receive $6,000 stipends to spend 10 weeks during the summer working in environmental positions with the government or with environmental interest organizations. In addition to their summer positions, the fellowship recipients will also participate in meetings of the state bar's Environmental Law Section and the Association of the Bar of the City of New York's Environmental Law Committee during the year, and will be assigned a mentor from the environmental bar for the summer.

Past fellowship recipients have worked at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, the state Department of Environmental Conservation, the state Department of Law, and such environmental organizations as Environmental Defense and the Natural Resources Defense Council.