Janice Weis, Assistant Dean
Director, Environmental & Natural Resources Law Program

Specialty Areas & Course Descriptions

Natural Resources Law and Policy

Academic Credentials

J.D., 1988, University of California, Hastings College of Law
B.S., high honors, 1984, University of California, Berkeley

Professional Background

Janice has served as Director of the Environmental and Natural Resources Law Program since 1994.

She came to the program after six years as an associate attorney in the Natural Resources and Public Law Department of Best, Best & Krieger in Riverside, California (where she served as co-chair of the natural resources practice group in 1992-93). She acquired extensive transactional and litigation experience in the areas of the California Environmental Quality Act, the National Environmental Policy Act, water quality (including the California Porter-Cologne Act and the federal Clean Water Act), water rights, federal and state Endangered Species Acts, wetlands and land use.

During law school, Janice served as a law clerk for the Conference of Western Attorneys General and as an extern for the Sierra Club Legal Defense Fund in Denver, Colorado, and authored Federal Reserved Water Rights in Wilderness Areas, Hastings Constitutional Law Quarterly (Winter 1987).

Janice was a Member and Vice-Chair of the Executive Committee of the California State Bar Environmental Law Section from 1992 to 1994. She also served as a member of the Legislation and NAFTA/GATT Subcommittees and Vice-Chair of the CEQA Review Committee, and was a contributing author to the Environmental Law Section's "CEQA Assessment and Recommendations," submitted to the California legislature in 1994.

Other publications include: contributing author, California Water (Solano Press 1995, chapters on endangered species and water transfers); and co-author, "Coping with Shortages: Managing Water in the 1990s and Beyond," (American Bar Association's Natural Resources and Environment Magazine, Spring 1991), reprinted in The Natural Resources Law Manual (ABA 1995).

Janice has taught numerous seminars, including seven years of Endangered Species Act trainings for USDA Forest Service personnel.