Zymut Plater Gives SPIEL Keynote

Media, Law, the Snail Darter, and Democracy: How a Little Group of Tennesseans Carried a Little Fish through the Corridors of American Power Against a Notorious TVA Dam 

Zygmunt Plater, University of Maine Law School, Boston College Law emeritus, and

Plaintiffs’ Lead Counsel in TVA v. Hill, the country’s seminal case establishing the

enforceability of ESA protections under law, brought on behalf of Tennessee’s snail darter.

Zygmunt Jan Broël Plater, A.B., Princeton; J.D., Yale; LL.M., S.J.D., Michigan; member of

Bars of Tennessee, District of Columbia, U.S. 6th Circuit, U.S. Supreme Court. He has

taught on eight law faculties in the U.S. and abroad. At Boston College Law School he

taught environmental protection law, administrative agencies, property law, and a program

where law students teach college undergrad environmental courses, and coordinated the

Land & Environmental Law Program. He chaired the State of Alaska Exxon-Valdez Oil Spill

Commission’s Legal Research Task Force. He has written and worked on multiple

environmental problems—including toxics contamination, endangered species, the BP

Deepwater Horizon oil spill, whale entanglements, national parks, strip-mining regulation,

predatory land condemnations, and chemical pollution in the USA and abroad. In Ethiopia,

Plater drafted major portions of the national parks law, assisted in compiling the empire’s

Consolidated Laws, and helped coordinate the first African Conference on Human Rights.

With his students, Plater carried TVA v. Hill, the nation’s first major endangered species

case through congressional and court proceedings, and a presidential Cabinet-level economic review, arguing successfully in the U.S. Supreme Court against Griffin Bell, then

Attorney General of the United States. Named Boston College Public Interest Law Professor

of the Year in 2011, he received the 2019 Kravchenko Environmental Human Rights Award,

and the American Bar Association’s 2019 SEER Award for Excellence in Environmental,

Energy, and Resources Stewardship. He is senior author of a national environmental law

coursebook, ENVIRONMENTAL LAW & POLICY: NATURE, LAW & SOCIETY (Carolina). Plater is now teaching at UMaineLaw.

This presentation will follow the development, litigation, and conclusion of the seminal

U.S. Supreme Court case establishing the judicial enforceability of the species protections

of the Endangered Species Act, TVA v. Hill, 437 U.S. 153 (1978). In addition to the

substantive legal claims involved under the Act, Plater will address the intersection of the

litigation with the far-flung but intertwined fields of biology, grassroots advocacy, legislative

maneuvering, and media coverage. Because each of these elements is related to the

litigation work and has a direct impact on the success or failure of the litigation, this

presentation will aff

ord attorneys an expanded perspective on the necessary,

interdisciplinary suite of skills required to bring a controversial environmental lawsuit to a

successful conclusion. This presentation will increase participants’ professional

competence as attorneys by expanding the suite of skills required to bring a controversial,

high-stakes environmental case before the courts of the United States. Participants will

walk away with a greater appreciation of the many overlapping fields that influence the

outcome of controversial, high-stakes environmental litigation.