News

Terrence Neal, whose professional interests combine environmental justice and international law, has joined the Duke Environmental Law and Policy Clinic as its supervising attorney and an assistant clinical professor of law. 

“Terrence Neal has represented private parties, government agencies, and public interest clients during the past seven years, and his record of accomplishments impressed all of us at Duke Law,” said Ryke Longest, who with Michelle Nowlin JD/MA ‘92 co-directs the clinic.

“That commitment to protecting human rights and promoting environmental justice will expand the reach of the clinic and we are very excited to welcome him to our faculty.”

Neal comes to Duke from Vermont Law and Graduate School, where he was a fellow in its Environmental Law Center and Environmental Justice Clinic. Prior to that, he served at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), advising the agency on issues including climate and environmental justice, extraterritorial application of U.S. law, and the negotiation and implementation of international environmental and human rights instruments. Neal received many awards for his work at EPA, including the EPA National Honors Award and the EPA General Counsel Award of Excellence.

Neal’s interest in environmental issues stems from an outdoors-focused childhood in rural central Florida. As a public policy major at Duke University, where he was a member of the track and field team, he received a Stanback Fellowship to intern at Earthjustice, whose work on environmental justice issues resonated with him. 

“It gave me a richer perspective and vocabulary to describe some of the things that I experienced or saw growing up in a rural community in the South where, for example, there was inadequate access to sanitation services and relatively slow responses to hurricane impacts,” Neal said.

“Learning more about how systemic inequities in the United States concentrate environmental hazards in low-income communities and communities of color as well as deprive these communities of environmental amenities shook me and moved me to become an advocate for environmental justice.”

After receiving his JD from Harvard Law School, Neal clerked for Judge Timothy Corrigan JD ’81 of the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Florida, before serving as a judicial fellow at the International Court of Justice and joining the EPA. 

Neal brings an international and comparative law perspective to his counseling, research, and teaching. 

“We are able to more holistically understand and address environmental challenges, particularly those with transboundary dimensions, by examining the role that international frameworks can play in addressing as well as perpetuating the unequal distribution of environmental hazards and burdens,” he said. 

“Since legal education in the United States is primarily focused on United States law, I seek to highlight for students that we are all global citizens, and that we can learn much from strategies communities and governments have employed in foreign jurisdictions to achieve more equitable environmental outcomes.”

In addition to his legal practice, Neal’s scholarly works have been published in the Lewis & Clark Law Review, Harvard Environmental Law Review, and Vermont Journal of Environmental Law. His current research focuses on environmental rights and questions regarding the United States’ authority to conclude international environmental agreements.

Neal said he looks forward to collaborating with his clinical colleagues to expose students to a range of seminar materials and fieldwork that will help them build the skills, knowledge, and confidence they will need to be effective, justice-oriented environmental advocates. The clinic enrolls graduate students from Duke’s Nicholas School of the Environment as well as the Law School.

“The environmental field, in particular, is an area where interdisciplinary approaches are critical, so being able to draw on the expertise of Duke’s world-class faculty and staff, whether at the Nicholas School, the Nicholas Institute, the Sanford School of Public Policy, or the Law School, is invaluable,” Neal said. 

“This is one of the many reasons I’m excited to be joining the collegial Duke Law and Duke University communities.”