November 14, 2023

1:00 p.m.  – 2:00 p.m.

Climate Change: The Climate Change Litigation and Municipalities as Plaintiffs

Description: Municipalities are often defendants in court, but increasingly they have become plaintiffs, suing a variety of industries and seeking remedies for city-wide injuries that also further public-policy goals. The climate-change litigation provides a prism for understanding how state law can provide some of the tools for this type of litigation and the types of roadblocks defendants throw up to reliance on state law through removal to federal court and the use of federal-officer removal to mount appeals that can delay proceeding to the merits. With cases now pending before the U.S. Supreme Court, the litigation has the potential to establish a clearer path for municipalities as plaintiffs.

Speaker: Robert Peck

Robert S. Peck is the founder and president of the Center for Constitutional Litigation, PC, a Washington, DC appellate law firm with a nationwide practice. Peck has argued precedent-setting civil rights and civil liberties cases in courts through the Nation, including in the U.S. Supreme Court and 23 state supreme courts. He has taught advanced constitutional law seminars at the law schools of George Washington University and American University. He serves as a member of the advisory committee of the Civil Justice Research Institute at UC Berkeley Law School. He is also a past chair of the Board of Advisors of the RAND Corporation’s Institute for Civil Justice, past president of the U.S. Supreme Court Fellows Alumni Association, past president of the Freedom to Read Foundation, and a former board member for the National Center for State Courts.

He is a co-author of a forthcoming book, The Temple of Karnak and Other Stories from the Supreme Court (TouchPoint Press 2023). Among his other books are The Bill of Rights and the Politics of Interpretation (West 1991); To Govern a Changing Society (Smithsonian 1990); and We the People: The Constitution in American Life (Abrams 1987), companion volume to the award-winning PBS documentary series he helped produce. He is a contributing editor to the Appellate Advocacy Blog of the Law Professor Blog Network.