This presentation, recorded as part of Fair Shake’s 2015 Community Fair, provides an introduction to my practice as a sharing economy lawyer. The sharing economy is a general trend towards sustainable economic and community development in a way that facilitates community ownership, localized production, cooperation, small-scale enterprise, and the regeneration of economic and natural abundance.
What It Means To Work at the Intersection of Reproductive and Environmental Justice
Looking at environmental concerns through a reproductive justice lens (and looking at reproductive concerns through an environmental justice lens) can help attorneys articulate needs that might otherwise go unaddressed and unnoticed in conversations about legal concerns and potentially available remedies. Recent statements from the International Federation of Gynecology and Obstetrics on environmental justice, concerns surrounding the spread of Zika virus, and the impact of black lung on Appalachian families all demonstrate the unique way our environment impacts our reproductive health and the impact that has on our ability to plan and provide for our families. These scenarios demonstrate the way an individual’s ability to exercise their reproductive rights and gain access to reproductive healthcare can contribute to how successfully that individual navigates the environmental concerns they may be facing. They also demonstrates the way economic and social factors impact an individual’s exposure to harm and access to justice.
A fellow attorney once told me that what I am saying boils down to “nothing happens in a vacuum.” However, I think working at the intersection of environmental and reproductive justice means much more than that. As an attorney committed to serving modest-means clients and an attorney committed to addressing the environmental legal concerns of women and families in particular, using these lenses to tackle a legal problem brings unique counseling and fact-gathering skills and provides an opportunity for novel approaches to legal action.
Landowners: Can I use renewable energy and maintain Clean and Green status?
To counter the market forces favoring development, the Pennsylvania Farmland and Forest Land Assessment Act, often referred to as “Clean and Green” or Act 319, provides preferential tax assessments for qualifying farmland and forestland. The question is: Can a landowner maintain Clean and Green status while also implementing a renewable energy project on the property?
GASP v. Shenango: Setting Precedent on What Is Jurisdictional in Citizen Suits
I have to stretch my memory to recall a time when I have heard the word “jurisdiction” used outside of the realm of legal beagles. The best I can do is to think of various times when a police or fire vehicle appears in a completely different city or town than the one displayed on the side of the vehicle. When that happens, we’ll often say: “I wonder what she’s doing outside of her jurisdiction?” As a general matter, most people seem to understand, then, that jurisdiction refers to the area where that governmental actor has power to do something.
