David N. Cassuto

Professor David N. Cassuto came to Pace in July 2003 from Coblentz, Patch, Duffy & Bass LLP in San Francisco, where he practiced complex civil litigation. Prior to that, he was an associate at Pillsbury Winthrop LLP in San Francisco and served on the Executive Committee of the San Francisco Bar Association’s Environmental Law Practice Group. Before entering private practice, Professor Cassuto clerked for the Honorable Rosemary Barkett on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit.

A former professor of English specializing in literature and the environment, Professor Cassuto has published and lectured widely on legal, literary, and environmental issues. He is also a frequent speaker on legal and cultural studies.

Professor Cassuto teaches in the areas of constitutional law, animal law, water law, international comparative law, and legal and environmental theory. He is the Faculty Director of SJD Programs at the Law School and the Executive Director of the Brazil American Institute for Law and Environment (BAILE), a cooperative endeavor with the Getulio Vargas Foundation School of Law in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.

Professor Cassuto was a Fulbright Fellow at FGV Direito Rio, in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, in 2010, is a visiting professor at the Universidad Cientifica in Lima, Peru and at the Federal University of Bahia, Brazil, and is the Class of 1946 Distinguished Visiting Professor of Environmental Law at Williams College.

• BA, Wesleyan University
• MA, Indiana University
• PhD, Indiana University
• JD, University of California, Berkeley, School of Law

• Comparative Environmental Law (Brazil) LAW 715A
• Animal Law LAW 815
• Water Rights Law LAW 681A

View all of Professor Cassuto’s publications on SSRN, Digital Commons or download his CV (PDF).

Books:

• Animal Law and the Courts, (Thomson West Press 2008) (co-editor)
• Dripping Dry: Literature, Politics and Water in the Desert Southwest, (University of Michigan Press 2001)
• Cold Running River: An Ecological Biography of the Pere Marquette River, (University of Michigan Press 1994)

Articles:

• Suffering Matters: NEPA, Animals, & the Duty to Disclose, 42 U. Haw. L. Rev. 41 (2020) (with Tala DiBenedetto)
• You Don’t Need Lungs to Suffer: Fish Suffering in the Age of Climate Change with a Call for Regulatory Reform (PDF), 5 Can. J. Comp. & Contemp. L. 1 (2019) (with Amy O’ Brien)
• Under the Radar: The Costs and Benefits of Wind Energy Through the Lens of National Security, Mich. St. L. Rev. 587 (2018)
• Caution, Precaution, & Common Sense: Some Thoughts on GMOs, Ecosystems, & Regulating the Unknown (co-author with Drew Levinson), Revista Novos Estudos Juridicos – Eletronica (2018)
• Don’t Be Cruel (Anymore): A Look at the Cruelty Regimes of the United States and Brazil with a Call for a New Animal Welfare Agency, 43 B.C. Envtl. Aff. L. Rev. 1 (2016) (with Cayleigh Eckhardt)
• Foreword, Pace Environmental Law Review (special issue on Animal Law), 31 Pace Envtl. L. Rev. 399 (2014)
• Environment, Ethics, & the Factory Farm, 54 S. Tex. L. Rev. 579 (2013)

• Michael A. Calandra, Jr. ’05 Faculty Scholar
• Seeds Award (Presented by International Society for Animal Rights in Recognition of Contributions to the Field of Animal Law)
• Fellow: FGV Direito Rio School of Law
• Fellow: Oxford Centre for Animal Ethics
• Jefferson Award for Service to the Community (National Award)
• Academy Scholar – Pace Academy for Applied Environmental Studies
• Lifetime Achievement Award – Institute for the Abolition of Animals, presented at the Third World Congress on Bioethics and Animal Rights
• U.S. Speaker & Specialist Grant – Invited by U.S. State Department to give a series of lectures in Brazil
• Fulbright Scholar
• NEH Fellow: "Literature in Transition: The Impact of Information Technologies,”

Animal Law, Environmental Law, Water Law, Comparative Law, Property, Constitutional Law, Risk Management