Ann E. Carlson

Ann E. Carlson (born 1960) is the Shirley Shapiro Professor of Environmental Law at the UCLA School of Law, where she also serves as faculty co-director of the Emmett Center on Climate Change and the Environment. She is an expert on U.S. environmental law and policy with a particular focus on climate change and environmental federalism.

Education

Carlson attended the University of California, Santa Barbara, and received her B.A. in Political Science magna cum laude in 1982. She graduated from Harvard Law School magna cum laude in 1989.

Career

Carlson joined the faculty of UCLA in 1994. She previously practiced law with the Los Angeles public interest law firm Hall and Phillips (now Phillips and Cohen), where she represented Stephanie Nordlinger in a challenge to California’s Proposition 13 in a case that reached the Supreme Court of the United States. Her work representing Emil Stache and Almon Muelhausen in a case under the False Claims Act against Teledyne Industries was featured in the book The Giantkillers.

At UCLA, Carlson has served as Academic Associate Dean and currently serves as Vice Dean for Faculty Recruitment and Intellectual Life. Carlson’s scholarship examines unusual arrangements of federalism, evaluation of domestic environmental law and policy, and climate change. Carlson is the recipient of UCLA’s highest teaching honor, the Eby Award for the Art of Teaching, and the Rutter Award for Excellence in Teaching.

Carlson served as a panelist for the influential National Academy of Sciences committee on Limiting the Magnitude of Climate Change. She is a member of the Steering Committee of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences Alternative Energy Future project. Carlson is a frequent commentator on environmental issues and a founder of and frequent blogger at Legal Planet.

Works

• Carlson, Ann E. (2006). Cases and Materials on Environmental Law. West Publishing. (Roger W. Findley, Daniel A. Farber and Jody Freeman)