Disaster Law with Professor Zellmer

Our faculty is simply fantastic, but our students get the special opportunity from time to time to learn from a distinguished visiting professor.  Yesterday, I was a guest in Professor Sandra Zellmer’s class on Disaster Law to share my experiences of loss in Hurricane Katrina.

Professor Zellmer is our distinguished visiting professor this semester.  She is the Robert Daugherty Professor at the University of Nebraska College of Law, where she began teaching in 2003.  Zellmer teaches torts, environmental law, natural resources, water law, and related courses.

She has published numerous articles and commentary on these topics, as well as several books,including Mississippi River Tragedies: A Century of Unnatural Disasters (NYU 2014) (with Christine Klein),Principlesof Natural Resources Law (West 2014) (with Jan Laitos), and Comparative Environmental Law (Carolina 2013).

Professor Zellmer is a member scholar of the Center for Progressive Reform and a trustee of the Rocky Mountain Mineral Law Foundation. Zellmer also recently served on the National Academy of Sciences—National Research Council Committee on MissouriRiver Recovery (2008-2010). She is active with the American Bar Association’s Section on Environment, Energy and Resources, serving as vice-chair of the Public Lands Committee and previously as the Chair of Marine Resources Committee.

Prior to taking her position at the University of Nebraska, Zellmer was a faculty member at the University of Toledo College of Law. She has also been a visiting professorat Tulane, Drake, Lewis and Clark, and the University of Auckland law schools.

Before she began teaching, Zellmer was an attorney for the U.S. Department of Justice Environment and Natural Resources Division, litigating public lands and NEPA issues for theNational Park Service,Forest Service, Fish & Wildlife Service and other federal agencies.  She also practiced law at Faegre & Benson in Minneapolis, Minnesota, and clerked for the Honorable William W. Justice, U.S. District Court, Eastern District of Texas.