Whether it's collecting energy from solar panels, monitoring the effects of local mining projects, or bearing witness to the endless stream of devastating weather events worldwide, there isn’t anyone on the planet who isn’t affected by ever-changing environmental factors.
Among young people, in particular, environmental concerns are widespread. In an online survey by Lancet Planetary Health of more than 15,000 U.S. youths aged 16–25 from across the country, 85% of respondents reported being at least moderately worried, with 57% extremely worried about climate change’s impact on people and the planet.
Over the years, the University of Minnesota Law School has built an esteemed program in environmental and energy law that is leading the way in preparing students for careers in several areas, including governmental agencies, law firms, legal departments at corporations and utilities, and nonprofit environmental groups. You’ll find Minnesota Law alumni making an impact across the environmental and energy law sectors by setting the strategic agenda for global NGOs, navigating intricate procurement processes at the U.S. Department of Energy, working with landowners to achieve climate and biodiversity goals, and fiercely protecting current environmental laws.
Five alumni share their experiences in a wide range of areas, demonstrating the breadth and depth of their impact in environmental and energy law.
Kathryn Hoffman ’06 has fond memories of spending summers at her family’s cabin on Lake Superior. An outdoorsy kid who felt like the big lake was a magnificent ocean, it never occurred to her that it was in danger of environmental harm. As a teenager, she became aware of climate change and invasive species, leading to an interest in environmental law.
Since 2017, Hoffman has led the Minnesota Center for Environmental Advocacy (MCEA), the leading legal voice protecting Minnesota’s environment that takes on issues in water, land use and transportation, clean energy, natural resources, and mining. As CEO of the nation’s largest state-based environmental law groups, she oversees a staff of nearly 30, including a team of 10 litigators who use law, science, and research to advocate for stronger environmental protections.
Hoffman, who started at MCEA as a staff attorney, says she enjoys being a generalist who evaluates how MCEA’s work fits into the political scene while making the organization more effective and preparing for new opportunities.
One of MCEA’s biggest challenges, says Hoffman, is the shift away from bipartisanship on environmental issues making it more difficult to work with both political parties than it used to be. That means a lot more falls on the MCEA as a watchdog organization.
“I think about our work as being interconnected to work that people are doing all over the state, the country, and the world,” she says. “That’s powerful. We are not alone; there are environmental lawyers, activists, and people who care deeply about climate change, clean water and air, and the future of the human race. This isn’t a fight we have to take on ourselves. We have all these other folks in the world. When things get challenging and hard, like they are right now, that’s why we exist. This is the moment to double down and not to despair.”
Hoffman fondly remembers her time on the National Moot Court while at Minnesota Law.
“Brad Clary ’75 was the coach,” says Hoffman, who also earned a degree from Humphrey School of Public Affairs while at the Law School. “It was an amazing experience. It convinced me that I wanted litigation to be part of my legal career.”
These days, when Hoffman returns to that family cabin on Lake Superior, she notices changes like the warming temperature and less ice coverage.
“There is science to support these things, but they’re also visible,” says Hoffman, who is leaving the MCEA in July to pursue other opportunities but will stay in the field of environmental work. “I’m more motivated than ever to be part of the solution.”
A career in renewable energy has taken Thomas Burman ’14 around the globe from Minnesota to Kenya and, currently, Brussels, where he’s been for the past three years with environmental law NGO ClientEarth. The London-based organization engages in strategic litigation, policy advocacy, and capacity-building activities to protect people and the planet.
As a senior advisor on ClientEarth’s Resources, Energy, and Mobility team, Burman’s role is an internal one, helping to set the organization’s strategic agenda around using the law within the European energy sector to protect the environment.
Burman says in Europe there’s more of a sense of solidarity around using regulatory approaches to protect the environment by setting up rules than in the United States.
“The ‘America First’ doctrine of ‘we’re going to go it alone and do our own thing’ doesn’t work in Europe for a few reasons, especially with the energy sector,” he says. “Europe doesn’t have its own access to most of the critical minerals it needs for renewable and other clean technologies. It needs to import all of that. That needs a different geopolitical approach. I work at the European Union level, and there’s no EU without countries agreeing to work together.”
Burman notes ongoing developments in European environmental and energy law with the EU taking an increasingly deregulatory approach to incentivizing an accelerated rollout of renewable energy and net-zero technologies.
“This has included implicitly or explicitly overriding key components of core environmental laws on the continent,” he said. “Promoting a swift clean energy transition is important, but the focus should not be on rolling back core environmental laws backed by decades of precedent clarifying how they should be applied.”
Burman said he gained a “tangible” skill set while at Minnesota Law, giving him the foundation needed for a career in environmental and energy law, including stints at Stinson Leonard Street (now Stinson), where he advised renewable energy projects and represented companies in complex environmental litigation. In Kenya, he was with a renewable energy developer/social enterprise focused on building renewable grid infrastructure in unelectrified areas of Sub-Saharan Africa. During that time, he also earned an LL.M. in Energy and Climate Law from the University of Groningen, Netherlands.
At Minnesota Law, Burman took energy law and administrative law classes particularly relevant to his current position, including a class with former Professor Hari Osofsky, now dean of the Northwestern Pritzker School of Law.
“She contributed a lot to climate change and energy law legal scholarship,” he said. “I was her research assistant and helped contribute to papers she wrote on global issues, which I found interesting. I appreciate that it allowed me to move from the abstract to explore more tangibly how I could make a positive impact within this area.”
Photo: Jay Mallin
Throughout his legal career, Rishi Garg ’02 has worked in various levels of government, from city to state, and eventually, to the White House, specializing in energy law. So, it might be a surprise that he never took an energy or environmental law class. At the Law School, he focused on public interest work, inspired by Professor john a. powell (who uses lowercase for his name) and the late Professor David Weissbrodt and their civil rights and international human rights classes.
Then, his career took an unexpected turn during his first job out of law school, working on housing issues for a state office in Illinois. This shift would set the stage for his future in energy law.
“I was asked to write a report on the electric grid,” he recalls. “I told them that I didn’t know a thing about electricity. ‘Welcome to being a lawyer,’ they said. So, I wrote the report and got hooked on energy.”
Over the past two decades, Garg has practiced as a clean energy attorney, holding positions at the White House, the U.S. Department of Defense, and the Federal Energy
Regulatory Commission. In January, Garg joined the U.S. Department of Energy, supporting the Office of Civilian Nuclear Programs. He deals with the nuclear fuel cycle, including issues related to advanced nuclear reactors and fuels.
“One of the big issues staring us down at the moment is all the AI coming online requiring the construction of data centers and causing a major increase in our energy demand,” he says. “The growth is driven by things like artificial intelligence, crypto mining, and the electrification of vehicles, appliances, and home heating, as well as the onshoring of manufacturing. The question is, will these new loads be served by carbon-emitting resources or carbon-free resources?
“New carbon-free resources, like nuclear and advanced geothermal, are not deploying fast enough, but as their costs decrease, they will begin to come online.”
Garg says he enjoys serving the government while engaging with energy issues locally, nationally and internationally. For him, it’s exciting to be part of something bigger than himself.
“With energy law, you're always on the ground floor and the learning curve just keeps going,” he says. “There are great experts in the field, so you're constantly learning from them. It's very exciting that we do have these new technologies coming online. We’re on the cusp of seeing an actual energy revolution take place with nuclear energy.”
Photo: Tony Nelson
“Fascinating.” That’s how Ben Klassen ’14 (MBA ’13) describes the renewable energy industry. During his time as a business transactions attorney at Winthrop & Weinstine, specializing in mergers and acquisitions, corporate law and commercial contracts, Klassen worked on renewable energy projects from a corporate perspective. His attraction to renewable energy drew him to a general counsel position with National Renewable Solutions (NRS), a renewable energy company headquartered in Minnetonka that originates, develops, and operates renewable energy projects throughout the country.
In August, he was named chief legal officer at NRS. In this role, he collaborates with landowners, equipment suppliers, construction and engineering contractors and utility companies on industry-specific issues and regulatory matters.
“When I joined the company, we were transitioning from a develop-and-sell model into an independent power producer, where we build, own, and operate our own projects,” says Klassen, who started at NRS in 2022. “I was really interested in energy, but I was also interested in the opportunity to be part of a growing business. To do that in an industry I love was a no-brainer.”
At NRS, which specializes in wind, solar energy, and energy storage, Klassen enjoys working with both community stakeholders and technology, engineering, and construction teams across the company.
“The wind turbines deployed now are multiple times more productive and efficient than turbines you might see from projects 20 years ago,” he says. “Wind and solar energy are generally faster to deploy than some other technologies. They are flexible, highly productive and can produce energy at a low cost.”
At the Law School, Klassen dug into environmental and energy issues through his law classes and the Environmental Moot Court. He used the University of Minnesota system to his advantage by also getting his MBA at the Carlson School of Management and working and Natural Resource Sciences.
“Using the strengths of the University of Minnesota both inside the Law School and in collaboration with other programs was beneficial,” Klassen says. “Learning about business structures that make sense for agricultural work relates to where I am now with renewables. It intersects with my interests in rural areas, agriculture, and communities as it ties into heavily regulated businesses.”
Photo: Tony Nelson
While working on urban redevelopment in Chicago after getting his undergraduate degree, Tom Garry ’02 saw the work of The Nature Conservancy (TNC), one of the world’s largest environmental organizations, using nature to address environmental and community challenges even in the most industrial of areas. With an interest in the environment and real estate, Garry thought TNC could be the place for him, but with no science background, was advised that he’d need an MBA or a law degree to get him in the door. He chose law and his plan was a success.
A senior attorney with TNC for the past seven years, Garry works on real estate and financing deals across North America to protect natural resources and help landowners conserve and manage their property to achieve climate and biodiversity goals.
“It’s about using a science-driven approach to better manage our relationship with nature, at scale, to protect biodiversity and tackle climate change,” he says. “It’s leveraging the power of nature to cost-effectively reduce emissions, sequester carbon, and adapt to a warmer world, whether that’s working with farmers and ranchers to adopt soil conservation practices, enabling timber companies to better manage forests, or protecting and restoring peatlands to store carbon.”
Garry says TNC’s role includes developing ways for people to appreciate nature both for its own sake and to understand it as one of the essential solutions to our environmental challenges.
“Since so much of what we do involves on-the-ground work with lands and waters, you can show people how the work is having an impact where they live,” he says. “Like planting more trees in cities. All these studies show that more trees in cities helps with urban heat, cleans the air and water, and improves the quality of life and livelihoods for people. Not only can we point to ways to move forward on our environmental challenges, but also demonstrate it in a way that can be tangibly communicated to people and build support and understanding.”
Garry took environmental law courses at Minnesota Law with Professor Jamie Grodsky, who died in 2010, and considers her an inspiration for his career. Before landing at TNC, Garry worked at Best & Flanagan and the University of Auckland’s Environmental Law Center. Garry, an optimist by nature, says the state of the environment, climate change, and biodiversity is always on his mind.
“I think about my kids and future generations,” he says when asked what keeps him motivated. “You can get wrapped up in thinking this is all terrible, or we can do something about it. Our mission is to find solutions, identify the paths to a better future. In my mind, there’s no alternative.”