Robert Percival ,
Robert F. Stanton Professor of Law and
Director, Environmental Law Program
BA, 1972, Macalester College
MA, 1978, JD, 1978, Stanford University
Courses : Administrative Law ; Constitutional Law I: Governance ; Environmental Law ; Environmental Law Seminar: Comparative Environmental Law ;
Professor Percival joined the Maryland faculty in 1987 after serving as senior attorney for the Environmental Defense Fund. While in law school, he served as managing editor of the Stanford Law Review and was named the Nathan Abbott Scholar for graduating first in his class. Percival served as a law clerk for Judge Shirley M. Hufstedler of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit and for U.S. Supreme Court Justice Byron R. White. Percival also served as a special assistant to the first U.S. Secretary of Education.
Percival is internationally recognized as a leading scholar in environmental law. He is principal author of the country's most widely used casebook in environmental law, Environmental Regulation: Law, Science & Policy , now in its fifth edition. He has written extensively on several topics, including environmental law, regulatory policy, federalism, presidential powers, and legal history. Professor Percival has taught as a visiting professor of law at Harvard Law School and Georgetown University Law Center. He served as a J. William Fulbright scholar at Comenius University Law School in Slovakia and has presented environmental workshops in several countries, including Japan, Russia, Mongolia, Iran, China and Uganda. In 2002 Percival was the Natural Resource Law Institute Distinguished Visitor at Lewis & Clark College of Law and a visiting professor of law at the University of Chile where he helped establish South America's first environmental law clinic. He has also taught summer courses at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver and at the University of Aberdeen in Scotland.
Percival currently teaches Environmental Law, Comparative Environmental Law, Constitutional Law, and Administrative Law. In 2007 he was named the University's 'Teacher of the Year.' During the spring semester 2008 he will teach as a J. William Fulbright Scholar at the China University of Political Science and Law in Beijing. He currently is working on a casebook on 'Global Environmental Law' ( www.globalenvironmentallaw.com ).
Percival has served on the Board of Directors of the Environmental Law Institute and as co-chair of the steering committee of the D.C. Bar's Section on Environmental, Energy and Natural Resources Law. He is the contributing editor for Environment and Natural Resources for the Federal Circuit Bar Journal. Percival has served as a special master for the U.S. District Court of Maryland and as a member of the state of Maryland's Environmental Restoration and Development Task Force. He also coaches the School of Law's championship softball team ( www.marylandlawsoftball.com ).