Cut to the University of Maryland Environmental Law Clinic. It's the old story: law school clinic work is unpopular. Local industry gets sued. Politicians respond. Here, Maryland's Governor wrote a tough letter pressing the clinic to drop a suit against a Maryland farmer/polluter. This follows similar pressure from legislators last year. The good news: Dean Phoebe Haddon is pushing back. You can find letters from both the Governor and Haddon here.
I'm on the Governor's side here. I've never understood why a state law school should expect to be able to spend taxpayer dollars on clinical litigation that harms the state's economy and to which the politicians who those taxpayers elect object. Granted, even state law schools ought to have academic freedom. Freedom to teach and do research. But to sue the state or otherwise actively interfere with the state's economic policies? To me, that's beyond the line. At some point, after all, we're state employees working on the taxpayer dime. If you don't like having the state as a boss, go work for a private law school.
