When I started law school, I wasn’t really sure what exactly I wanted to practice. To be honest, I wasn’t even sure at the time if I liked law. I was unsure of myself, I felt out of place in the law school because my classmates seemed to know exactly what they wanted to do and where they wanted to go.

I just knew I liked trees, and that law made sense to me, so whenever people asked me what I wanted to do, I floated the idea of environmental law. I didn’t realize it at the time, but my vague interest in pursuing environmental law turned into a serious passion.

When I was asked to give my perspective as a law student regarding what is exciting and what is challenging about entering into the field as a new lawyer, I hadn’t fully taken the time to actually think about why I enjoy working in environmental law so much.

As of writing this, I think I’ve pinpointed the most exciting and most challenging parts of entering into the field.

What’s the Most Exciting

The people. Environmental law is an interesting field. Everyone’s motivations are different for why they entered the field. Some ended up here by chance, others have wanted their whole life to practice in the field, and sometimes they just like trees. What I have realized working in this field though, is that everyone works in it because they truly enjoy what they do.

I started interning at the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources last August and returned for another round of the internship in January. I had the chance to work with rule writers, attorneys, water quality specialists, conservation wardens, and many others. When meeting any of these people, it is plainly clear to me that they are passionate about the work they do.

Before I started working in environmental law, I worked in various different settings, from farming to health care, and I have never met people more passionate about what they do than those working in environmental law.

It's important. Every type of legal practice is important, but environmental law in many ways is a prime example of the butterfly effect. Just as an effect so small as a butterfly’s wings can cause a major effect later in a consequential chain, minor disputes in environmental law can transform into major issues later on.

The example I often think of is what happened when Flint, Michigan, changed how it treated its water supply. When Flint changed from Lake Huron to the Flint River as the municipal water supply source, the chemistry change caused distribution pipes in the city to corrode and leach lead and heavy metals into the drinking water of the citizens. The damage was done, and even changing back to a connection from Lake Huron could not stop the corrosion. Luckily, most actions in environmental law don’t lead to crises if done incorrectly, but mistakes in environmental law affect entire populations, ecosystems, and groups.

It’s a collaborative field. Environmental law is a bit of a misnomer sometimes. While it is certainly true that the main purpose is to protect environmental quality and natural resources, the reason why we protect it is incredibly human.

For example, Acadia National Park was preserved mainly because the affluent liked having their large summer estates in a location near natural beauty, and they feared the continuing development of nearby Bar Harbor, Maine. Drinking water and groundwater regulations exist largely because it isn’t safe for people to drink contaminated water, and the co-benefits to bird populations thanks to Clean Air Act are merely coincidental, as the Clean Air Act was signed primarily in response to humanity’s own realization that inhaling smog was toxic to our health.

The point is that, while it certainly benefits the environment at large, environmental law is primarily meant to protect humans from themselves. We continue to progress faster than we can assess the dangers of doing so, and it often has consequences.

For example, PFAS were introduced in the 1940s, it wasn’t until 1961 that the first scientists began noticing its potentially harmful effects, and in 2025 we are now seeing that PFAS have spread throughout the world. PFAS isn’t the only example of this either, microplastics and fossil fuels have also caused significant harm to our environment that remains unremedied. However, it remains undeniable that without the advancements in plastics and the use of fossil fuels, modern society would be a pipe dream.

Environmental law is not a field that simply protects the planet from humans, it’s a field where we try to measure how much more we can take from the planet before we harm ourselves. Disputes in this field are resolved on a tightrope, if something is over-regulated, we harm ourselves, but if we under-regulate, we also put ourselves at risk of harm.

As a result, this field becomes collaborative – it’s about working together to find a balanced solution, as no one can afford to be completely adversarial without risking the potential of hurting themselves in the process.

Recently, one of my mentors told me that this type of work is the best when everyone at the table means well, because in those discussions everyone is working to agree, rather than to unequivocally win. Luckily, as I said, people in this field are passionate and truly care about their work, even if sometimes they’re in opposition with one another. Environmental Law means collaboration, which is something I’m happy to devote my life to.

The Challenges

It’s misunderstood and underappreciated. Unfortunately, because work in this field can have such massive effects on large populations, the work also gets a lot of publicity. This is not necessarily a bad thing, as people should be invested in their environment and in regulatory affairs.

However, major headlines can sometimes jeopardize policymaking processes. For example, the delta smelt in California’s San Joaquin Delta serves an important purpose as an indicator species for the health of the entire delta. It’s sensitive to changes in the environment, such as saltwater intrusion, which could turn freshwater supplies into saltwater. The reason the delta smelt is important is because its continued existence ensures that water is safe to drink. But as of late, narratives around the delta smelt describe how regulators are placing the needs of fish over the needs of people, when the reality of the situation is that over-pumping from the San Joaquin Delta is placing freshwater supplies in jeopardy and actively causing ground subsidence in the region. When inaccurate narratives gain traction with the public, it caricatures regulators and makes them look more like bleeding hearts than highly qualified professionals.

On the other side of the equation are the private sector environmental lawyers. Despite also being passionate workers and oftentimes conservationists, private sector employees are often required to serve interests or objectives that are viewed as nefarious. Even amongst law students currently interested in environmental law, it is difficult to even propose working in the private sector without the occasional sideways glances.

Going back to the balance required by environmental laws, it’s likely that at some point as an environmental lawyer, you will represent a cause that isn’t necessarily ‘pro-environment’ regardless of whether you work at a nonprofit, government agency, or a private firm. The work we do is important, but it is challenging to work in a space that is widely misunderstood.

It’s a tight job market. The passion of attorneys in the environmental section is huge, and it makes it one of the great pleasures of working in the field. However, it also means that jobs don’t open up as often as in other fields.

When I was interning in the Wisconsin Department of Justice Environmental Protection Unit, the attorneys talked about how states like New York, Massachusetts, and California have dozens of attorneys in their respective justice departments, while Wisconsin had roughly one dozen.

Additionally, recent reductions in the federal workforce ripple throughout the private sector and firms in Washington, D.C., are already seeing major increases in the amount of applicants coming from federal agencies. Currently, it seems that most of the attorneys leaving are focused on other areas of the law, but given the current administration's hostility towards environmental regulations, it seems like only a matter of time before the environmental law field starts seeing more attorneys leaving federal civil service, too.

As a law student looking to build a career in environmental law, I worry that students and recent graduates are going to be stuck competing for jobs with career civil servants who have better qualifications and more experience.

Despite this worry though, I love environmental law, and I’ll take every chance I get to work in it.

This article was originally published on the State Bar of Wisconsin’s Environmental Law Section Blog. Visit the State Bar sections or the Environmental Law Section webpages to learn more about the benefits of section membership.