What we do
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Ecology Law Quarterly’s primary function is to produce two high quality journals: a quarterly print version and a more frequent, cutting-edge online journal, Ecology Law Currents. UC Berkeley School of Law students manage every aspect of ELQ, from communicating with authors to editing articles to publishing the journals. In addition to featuring work by leading environmental law scholars, ELQ encourages student writing and publishes student pieces.
ELQ also serves as a social and academic hub for the environmental law community at the UC Berkeley School of Law. ELQ frequently joins other Boalt Hall environmental law organizations in hosting speakers or producing events on campus. ELQ is also dedicated to sustaining and strengthening the environmental law program at Boalt Hall, and works with the Center for Law, Energy & the Environment and other sister organizations to further this goal.
History
Ecology Law Quarterly began when a handful of San Francisco attorneys suggested to the Boalt Environmental Law Society that they publish a legal journal dedicated to environmental law. Soon after this, William Chamberlain was elected as the first Editor-in-Chief of ELQ, and devoted most of his efforts to fundraising. This was not an easy task: when Chamberlain approached then-Dean Edward Halbach, the Dean expressed his doubts as to whether environmental law was a big enough field to support an entire law journal!
Still, the Dean provided $35 for official stationery, and with this start, Chamberlain was able to cobble together enough funds to put out ELQ's first issue in the winter of 1971. The first issue, with a foreward from Senator Alan Cranston, was published as a joint venture with California Law Review.
Since then, ELQ has received a number of awards and recognitions. In 1990, ELQ was the only academic journal to receive a place on the United Nations Environmental Program Global 500 Roll of Honour for Environmental Achievement, one of the most prestigious awards in the international environmental field. ELQ members often compete in the Pace University Environmental Moot Court competition, and brought home top honors in 2001, winning the three-round, oral argument competition. And year after year, ELQ continues to be one of the most-cited student-edited environmental law journals in the nation.
In 2008, ELQ launched Ecology Law Currents, a companion online journal designed to act as a forum for short-form environmental legal writing to be published on a more frequent basis than the print journal.