Maxine Lipeles (pictured in front row, second from left, with colleagues)
Scientists. Engineers. Business professionals. Attorneys. A successful legal case for the environment calls for a sweeping understanding of how the world works. Disciplines and careers must intersect to aid the emergence of comprehensive laws that protect public health and safety.
Maxine Lipeles was a Washington University School of Law professor when she decided to take action and allow these intersections to occur. In 2000, she founded the Washington University Interdisciplinary Environmental Clinic, and today serves as its director. Her monumental accomplishments in this role have earned her the 2015 Sierra Club William O. Douglas Award, which recognizes use of the legal system to achieve conservation goals.
The Interdisciplinary Environmental Clinic represents nonprofits, communities, and individuals who cannot afford the legal expertise and vast background needed to execute a successful environmental case. Washington University undergraduate and graduate students sign up for the Clinic for credit, with an emphasis on the variance of their backgrounds. Then, the students are divided into diverse teams to tackle cases.
“We get them to embody their role as much as possible, and equip them with the skills they need to make a good case,” Lipeles said. “Environmental issues are rarely straight legal issues - you have to understand complex facts as well as the law to be the best for the client. That’s what we work to facilitate.”
The Clinic has argued in favor of emissions standards, interstate air pollution controls, hazardous wastes, and much more. During the George W. Bush administration, the Clinic sued the EPA to force a national review of the air standard for lead. Their work significantly contributed to reducing the lead standard by 90%, in a triumph that resulted in the only air standard within scientific recommendation in Bush’s presidency.
Lipeles has felt connected to the environment since she was a little girl. Inspired by the first Earth Day and concerned about excessive corporate environmental influence, Lipeles studied environmental policy at Princeton. Her passions came together when she pursued environmental law at Harvard, earning her degree in 1979.
Now, she has her sights set on addressing climate change in her work.
“Our single biggest challenge is using the law to effectively address climate change,” Lipeles said. “Dramatically reducing emissions and adapting to the worst impacts that are already occurring cuts across many aspects of law. We are also focusing on environmental justice issues as we move forward.”
A St. Louis resident since 1982, Lipeles has been a Missouri Sierra Club member for decades. Her Clinic has worked with the Club frequently over the last 15 years, representing the Missouri chapter since the Clinic’s inception. In addition to her legal work, Lipeles enjoys baking bread and spending time with her husband and two adult children.
Lipeles is no stranger to awards. Last year, she was named Best Lawyers’ St. Louis Environmental Litigation Lawyer of the Year, and is a past recipient of the Missouri Coalition for the Environment’s Lewis Green Environmental Defense Award. In addition to her teaching and administrative duties running the Clinic, she is the author and co-author of casebooks on hazardous waste and water pollution.
Lipeles said she is thrilled to be receiving the William O. Douglas Award.
“I’m really surprised, incredibly honored, and flattered,” Lipeles said. “I feel like it’s recognizing the work of the whole clinic.”
For more information on the Washington University Interdisciplinary Environmental Clinic, visit their website.