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As an undergraduate, Michele Okoh '09 was unsure whether she would pursue a career in medicine or in law. She has managed to combine both. As an academic and an emerging leader in environmental health, Okoh is carving a unique path in an area that has gained broad attention from the local level to the White House. 

After graduating from Duke Law Okoh worked with the U.S. Senate Committee on Small Business and Entrepreneurship. She represented the state of North Carolina as both a prosecutor and an attorney with the N.C. Department of Justice and managed her own law practice, Okoh Law Firm. In August 2019, Okoh returned to Duke, serving as a senior lecturing fellow for the Environmental Law and Policy Clinic until December 2021.

Now an assistant professor at Lewis & Clark Law School, Okoh teaches public health law, criminal law, and criminal procedure and focuses her scholarship at the intersection of criminal justice, environmental justice, and public health law. A graduate of the University of Louisiana at Lafayette, where she received her bachelor's degree, Okoh also holds a master of public health from George Washington University.

Okoh currently serves as the section councilor for the Environment Section of the American Public Health Association (APHA) and represents both the Law Section and Environment Section on the Action Board of APHA. She is the recipient of the 2021 Rebecca A. Head Award for her outstanding leadership and work at the intersection of environmental justice, policy and science. Her paper Forgotten Waters, 111 Geo. L.J. 723 (Issue 4), was selected by the Environmental Law Institute as one of the top 20 environmental law articles published in 2023, and awarded honorable mention and published in the Environmental Law and Policy Annual Review.

Okoh also co-authored The Practical Playbook III: Working Together to Improve Maternal Health, emphasizing the importance of finding solutions for the crisis of maternal mortality and maternal health equality, and co-authored multiple publications as a member of the Environmental Law Collaborative including the forthcoming Adapting to High-Level Warming: Law, Governance, and Equity. She recently spoke about her academic and career journey. 

How did you decide to pursue a career in law?

I actually started out both pre-law and pre-med in undergrad, which translates into not being sure of what I really wanted to do. However, once I had my son, I had to get serious and figure out how I was going to support him. Ultimately, my decision was led by two factors: my passions and my weaknesses. First, I have always had a passion for both learning and justice. I truly believe it would be a waste for me to be on this earth and not contribute to it being a better place. The law seemed like a way to pursue both of these passions. Second, while my intellectual curiosity is a strength in many circumstances, it can become a weakness if I get so wrapped up in the pursuit of knowledge that I forget that there are real human beings impacted. People are more than just their biology but human beings with lives, loves, and dreams. Law helps me to never forget that.

I also want to credit Dr. Sharon Ridgeway, one of my professors from UL Lafayette, with indirectly getting me to focus on law. She was a mentor to me when I transferred from LSU to UL Lafayette, and I credit her with helping me form my professional identity. When I first transferred to UL Lafayette, I saw myself as a consumer of knowledge, not a creator. However, she encouraged to share my thoughts with the outside world, helping me understand that my ideas were unique. Dr. Ridgeway encouraged me and convinced me that I was uniquely positioned to make a valuable contribution to justice.

What led you to attend Duke Law, and how did you feel about its investment in students and commitment by faculty and administration to your success? 

I can go on and on about the Duke Law community and the support that is available as a part of that community. In fact, that is what brought me to Duke Law in the first place. When I was applying to law schools, there was one thing I was sure of: I was not attending a law school in the South. I was sick of the South and felt that there was a lack of opportunities available for a Black then-single mother. However, I received a call from someone with Duke Law’s Parents Attending Law Schools (PALs) program, and they appealed to my interests, convincing me that Duke Law was a place where I could be both a successful lawyer and mother. We discussed the cost of childcare and how Durham was a great place to raise a family. I had looked at several other schools and was rather disappointed in how they measured in these areas. I was sold! Later I found out that Dean Katharine T. Bartlett had prioritized recruiting more public interest minded students like me.  

That connection continues beyond graduation. I graduated in 2009 and felt unbelievably discouraged. That was a terrible year to graduate, especially if you wanted to practice public interest law. During law school, I had focused on environmental law, but I did not work in that area following graduation. Despite this, Ryke Longest reached out to me to speak to students. I was dumbfounded as to why he would put so much confidence in me. I would like to say that I trusted him and took him up on that offer, but I instead chose to listen to that voice inside that told me that I was not qualified for such an honor. Nevertheless, it was something that I carried with me and factored into my decision to serve as a fellow at the Duke Environmental Law & Policy Clinic. This marked the beginning of my career in legal academia. Similarly, Steve Roady encouraged me to teach an environmental justice readings course when I lacked the confidence to do so. This time I decided to trust those who believed in me.

You were among the first students in Duke Law's Environmental Law and Policy Clinic. How did that experience inform your work as a professor and your journey to working on issues related to public health and the environment?

The Clinic is completely different now, and my favorite components of the Clinic were not in place yet. Back then, each student was assigned two cases, and we did not work in teams. Nevertheless, it was the first place I made the connections between public health and the environment.

At that time, environmental justice was not mainstream, and the general attitude from environmental organizations was that environmental justice was not work worth doing. However, the Clinic was dealing with cases that impacted communities, not just ecosystems and natural resources. There seemed to be this understanding early on that the relationship between people and the environment was complex and not simply just a matter of protecting the environment from people. In retrospect, it gave me the confidence to work on the issues that I care about.

How did you come to work on the book The Practical Playbook III: Working Together to Improve Maternal Health, and where do things stand today regarding maternal health equity?

I am grateful for the opportunity to work on the PPB III where I wrote the chapter dedicated to environmental impacts on maternal health. It presented an opportunity to work on an issue I care about from a public health perspective.

The statistics for maternal health in the US are disturbing, to put it mildly. The U.S. has the highest maternal death rate of industrialized countries – and Black women are three times more likely to die from pregnancy than White women. The disparities are dramatic and are attributable to multiple synergistic factors. But the statistic that keeps me up at night is that 80% of these deaths are preventable. In the PPB III, our focus is on providing providers and public health practitioners with the tools they need to improve maternal health outcomes.

Your article Forgotten Waters was recognized as a top work of environmental scholarship last year. How did you arrive at the topic and theme of environmental justice and access to safe drinking water?

My interest in well water began during my first summer job as a law student where I worked on a carbon capture and sequestration project. It was also an issue I worked in while I was a fellow in the Water and Land Section of NC DOJ. However, my connection with communities impacted by well water contamination began at the Clinic. There I worked directly with impacted communities where previously I had only worked on these issues from a distance.

In the words of Reverand Howard Moody, “Only when stereotypes have names and troubles and worries and fears, and sometimes joys, do we grant them humanity.” It was in the Clinic and at Duke Law that I was able to appreciate this humanity. I was able to forge connections to impacted communities, including West End Revitalization Association. While writing my article, I received feedback from community leaders such as Omega and Brenda Wilson. This investment was important to producing an article that recognized the agency of these communities.

What advice can you share for students considering careers connected to environmental work?

The most important decision you can make in your legal career is the clients you choose to represent. That will shape your entire your career. At the end of the day, no matter what your personal beliefs may be, your job is to represent the interests of your clients. Be careful what cases you choose to accept.

I remember being dejected after graduating when public interest organizations expected me to do work for free. I had a family to support, so that was not an option for me, no matter how prestigious such an opportunity was supposed to be. I remember Bruce Elvin’s response when I called him in frustration. He told me that he could get me a job that day and it would pay me a lot of money, but I wasn’t going to like it very much. I ended up choosing public interest work outside of environmental law. At that point, I assumed that was the end of my environmental law career. I was wrong.

Keep your eye on the big picture. You have chosen an amazingly versatile career that will take you to places you can never imagine professionally. Ultimately, my experience outside of environmental law allowed me to see connections to the environment that others who have practiced in that area solely may easily overlook.

Be opportunistic. My most valuable legal experience came from those opportunities I seized for myself. I was willing to go to more senior attorneys and take on the projects they preferred not to take on. That allowed me to gain skills and experience beyond those of my given job, and you better believe those went on my resume. It also allowed me to connect with attorneys outside of my limited work circle who were willing to mentor me. Focus on growth; it will pay off in the future.

Finally, despite what it looks like, none of us ever really feel like we know what we are doing. Be bold. Trust yourself. You are capable of more than you think.

Outside of work, you’re active in the theater community and a fan of horror and science fiction. What are some of the plays you’ve acted in and directed? And what are some of your favorite genre films and tv shows?

One of my proudest moments was directing the southeast regional premiere of Eclipsed for the Women’s Theatre Festival. My foray into directing this play started from confusion. I simply could not understand why I could not find a production of a Tony Award winning play written by Danai Gurira that was THE first play with an all-black and female cast and creative team. I decided that this was something that needed to be corrected, so I decided to pitch the production to the Women’s Theatre Festival, hoping that they would run with it and bring this production to North Carolina, and my pitch won. They would produce Eclipsed.

There was just one thing that was missing: Who was going to spearhead this production? I expected that person to be anyone but me. However, it turns out that, if you want something to happen, you have to make it happen. And that is how I ended up directing the southeast regional premiere of Eclipsed. When I originally read the play, I had a vision for it. To me, these were not just characters in a play. I saw people I knew. Women I loved. So, that is what I brought to life. The production ended up being a success. Every show was sold out, and it was well reviewed. That was my first time directing a full-length play.

Now I am consulting on a podcast called Hush from Oregon Public Radio which focuses on the case of Jesse Johnson. [More information on the case is available at opb.org/article/2023/09/06/jesse-johnson-harriet-thompson-oregon/]

I love sci-fi and horror, even though it was probably my love of those genres that killed my career in drama. I got a similar question when I was applying to theatre programs for college, and I responded by focusing on my favorite sci-fi and horror shows. I think there was something about the acting in Star Trek and the Twilight Zone that did not quite resonate with my application reviewers. Oh, well!