Karl S. Coplan

Professor Karl S. Coplan is a Professor of Law Emeritus, having joined the Law School in 1994. Prior to joining the faculty, he practiced land use and environmental litigation for eight years with the New York City firm of Berle, Kass & Case. As the principal outside counsel for Riverkeeper, Inc., Professor Coplan and the Pace Environmental Litigation Clinic have brought numerous lawsuits enforcing the Clean Water Act and other environmental laws. These cases include Catskill Mountains Chapter, Trout Unlimited v. City of New York, in which the Second Circuit Court of Appeals held that the transfer of polluted, silt-laden water from one watershed to another required a permit pursuant to the federal Clean Water Act. Professor Coplan has also participated in litigation and Clean Water Act permitting proceedings involving several Hudson River power plants, including the proposed Bowline 3 power plant, and the Lovett, Roseton, Danskammer, and Athens plants. Before entering private practice, Professor Coplan clerked for The Honorable Warren E. Burger, Chief Justice of the United States, and The Honorable Leonard I. Garth, Circuit Judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit.

While at Haub Law, in addition to directing the Pace Environmental Litigation Clinic, Professor Coplan taught courses in Environmental Law and Constitutional Law.

• BA, Middlebury College
• JD, Columbia Law School

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

Book

• Live Sustainably Now: A Low-Carbon Vision of the Good Life (2021)

Articles

• Citizen Litigants Citizen Regulators: Four Cases Where Citizen Suits Drove Development of Clean Water Law, 25 Colorado Natural Resources, Energy & Environmental Law Review 61 (2014)
• Climate Change, Political Truth, and the Marketplace of Ideas, Utah L. Rev. 545 (2012).
• Legal Realism, Innate Morality, and the Structural Role of the Supreme Court in the U.S. Constitutional Democracy, 86 Tul. L. Rev.181(2011).
• Public Trust Limits on Greenhouse Gas Trading Schemes: A Sustainable Middle Ground?, 35 Colum. J. Envt’l L. 287 (2010).

Book Chapter

• “The Takings Clause and Environmental Law,” in Principles of Constitutional Environmental Law (James R. May ed., 2011).

Environmental Law, Natural Resources Law