Richard Lazarus

Biographical Information

Curriculum Vitae (pdf)

Richard Lazarus is a Professor of Law at the Georgetown University Law Center, where he teaches Supreme Court Advocacy, Environmental Law, and Torts. He has a B.S. from the University of Illinois in Chemistry and a B.A. in Economics, and his law degree is from Harvard. At Georgetown, he is also the Faculty Director of Supreme Court Institute, which sponsors academic courses and workshops on the Supreme Court and provides practice moot court arguments for counsel for more than ninety percent of the cases before the Court.

He has previously taught at Indiana University, Harvard University, Northwestern University, University of San Diego, University of Texas, and Washington University schools of law. For the past three summers, he has co-taught a course on the history of the Supreme Court of the United States with the Chief Justice of the United States. Professor Lazarus worked for the United States Justice Department, both in the Environment and Natural Resources Division (1979-83) and the Solicitor General's Office (1986-89), where he was Assistant to the Solicitor General.

Professor Lazarus has represented the United States, state and local governments, and environmental groups in the United States Supreme Court in 37 cases and has presented oral argument in 13 of those cases. He most recently served as counsel of record for environmental respondents Riverkeeper et al in Entergy v. Riverkeeper, argued in December 2008. He also represented the United States in U.S. v. Chem-Dyne, the first case to establish joint and several liability under CERCLA, and the California Supreme Court case, National Audubon Society v. Superior Court of Alpine County, applying the public trust doctrine to Mono Lake.

His primary areas of legal scholarship are environmental and natural resources law, with particular emphasis on constitutional law and the Supreme Court. He has published two books, The Making of Environmental Law (U. Chicago 2004), and Environmental Law Stories (Aspen Press, co-edited with O. Houck). Professor Lazarus has won the faculty teaching award at both Washington University and Georgetown University.