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Press Release

Climate Law Scholar and Practitioner Sam Bookman joins Pace Haub Law as Visiting Professor and Haub Visiting Scholar

Posted
August 20, 2025
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Elisabeth Haub School of Law at ĢƵվ Visiting Professor and Haub Scholar Sam Bookman

The Elisabeth Haub School of Law at ĢƵվ is pleased to announce that Sam Bookman will be a Visiting Professor with the Law School for the Fall 2025 semester and he was also selected to serve as a Haub Visiting Scholar. While at Pace Haub Law, he will teach Climate Change Law and Constitutional Law.

Professor Bookman is currently a Postdoctoral Fellow at Harvard’s Project on the Foundations of Private Law. He also works as the Senior Staff Attorney in the Environment Program of the , an initiative of the New York City Bar Association. In this role he regularly advises and represents clients before courts and tribunals, and manages complex multijurisdictional legal research. He has taught climate law at several law schools, and has acted for a range of international clients, including several United Nations officers and agencies. His prior teaching or research appointments include NYU, Boston College, and the University of Melbourne. He has also consulted on several projects related to constitutional drafting and design.

“Professor Bookman’s research, scholarship, and teaching brings a unique approach in the areas of climate law, litigation, social movements, and all aspects of environmental rights,” said Elisabeth Haub School of Law at ĢƵվ Dean Horace E. Anderson Jr. “He is an active scholar and brings not only an academic lens to the classroom, but also a practical one, having advised and represented clients before both national and international courts and tribunals. Pace Haub Law is excited for him to bring his expertise to both our classrooms and community.”

Professor Bookman’s work is widely published in prominent national and international law reviews. He has also authored many book chapters, blog posts, and contributed to numerous research reports and collaborations. His work has been published in a wide range of journals, including the Utah Law Review, Modern Law Review, Environmental Law, Oxford Journal of Legal Studies, and Nature Sustainability. His work is also forthcoming in the University of Colorado Law Review and the German Law Journal. Professor Bookman’s academic work and professional research has been cited by the International Court of Justice and Supreme Court of Pakistan. His research explores issues related to constitutional design, climate litigation, and social movements, as well as environmental human and nonhuman rights. He received his SJD from Harvard Law School in 2025.

"I am thrilled to be joining Haub Law as a Visiting Professor and a Haub Visiting Scholar this fall,” said Professor Bookman. “I am passionate about continuously learning, researching, and teaching, specifically areas that relate to environmental law, constitutional law, and their intersection. The Pace Haub Law Environmental Law Program is comprised of the top faculty, students, and alumni. I look forward to learning from this community and sharing my research.”

In addition to his role as a Visiting Professor, Professor Bookman will serve as a Haub Visiting Scholar. Haub Visiting Scholars collaborate with faculty, guest lecture classes, and work closely with students in the Environmental Law Program and others. Funding for the Haub Visiting Scholars was made possible by a gift from the Haub family in recognition of the essential role of environmental science, informatics and other technology and allied fields towards formulating environmental policy and law.

"Professor Bookman is a leading scholar on environmental rights and we're excited to have his expertise as we build the , which seeks to support application of the environmental rights added to the New York State Constitution in 2022," shared Faculty Director of the Environmental Law Program and Haub Distinguished Professor of Environmental Law at the Elisabeth Haub School of Law at ĢƵվ, Katrina Fischer Kuh. The Pace New York Environmental Rights Repository provides a resource to advocates, litigators, courts and scholars seeking to interpret, apply, and understand Article I section 19. It houses documents relating to the amendment’s legislative history; briefs and decisions in cases implicating the Article I, section 19; materials shedding light on the public context in which the amendment was adopted; and relevant legal scholarship.

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