Wildfire Legal Fellows, (2 Positions)

The Environmental and Natural Resources Law & Policy Program (ENRLP) of Stanford Law School and the Climate and Energy Policy Program (CEPP) of Stanford's Woods Institute for the Environment invite applications for two Wildfire Legal Fellows. The Wildfire Fellows will join the thriving community in the Stanford Law School, reporting to the ENRLP Director, and will work closely with the leaders of CEPP at the Woods Institute as it enters Stanford's new Stanford Doerr School of Sustainability.

These one-year, full-time fellowships are crafted for early-career attorneys with a strong interest in wildfire policy design and implementation and the important interactions with decarbonization and climate resilience policy. They offer a hands-on opportunity to apply your legal skills and expertise to address urgent and intensifying wildfire policy challenges in California and the western US. This work will build on and deepen partnerships with policy stakeholders and Stanford's long track record of engagement on wildfire policy in both Sacramento and Washington, D.C.

One Fellow's primary focus will be supporting the development of a quantitative planning process for wildfire risk reduction in California, transforming the current suppression-oriented wildfire management approach towards a focus on protecting public health through quantified risk reduction and managing the electricity rate impacts of wildfire-related grid investments.

The other Fellow's primary focus will be supporting the development of generalized public health guidance on best practices for protecting students in school settings and other vulnerable populations from wildfire smoke, as well as the creation of substitutes for commercial liability coverage for prescribed burners and landowners interested in hosting prescribed burn projects.

Both Fellows will play a lead role in organizing and implementing a multidisciplinary Wildfire Policy Practicum in each quarter of Stanford's academic year (September-June) that creates opportunities for Stanford graduate students to conduct rigorous and timely analysis in support of the objectives outlined above. Both Fellows will also engage with external policy partners and practicum "clients" to ensure that products are maximally relevant to active policy processes, engaging directly in such processes when appropriate.