The Western Environmental Law Center has been defending the West’s air, water, wildlands, and local communities since its inception as a law clinic at the University of Oregon Law School in 1976.

By the early 1980s, the environmental law clinic’s founders professors Mike Axline and John Bonine were helping law students defend the West on behalf of grassroots conservation organizations — from stopping Air Force bomber flights over ranches and wilderness areas, forcing industry to disclose toxic chemicals in household products, to forcing polluters to comply with the law.

The success of the University of Oregon’s environmental law clinic was well-established.

However, the clinics relationship with the University of Oregon was forever changed in 1987 when its law students, together with the Sierra Club Legal Defense Fund, challenged Oregon timber sales to protect the endangered northern spotted owl.

In response, the timber industry launched an unprecedented attack on the University of Oregon Law School’s academic freedom.  Through industry allies in the Oregon legislature, a resolution was introduced to close down not just the environmental clinic, but the entire law school if the clinic was not disbanded.[1]  In 1993, the environmental law clinic voluntarily moved off campus and the Western Environmental Law Center was born.

Meanwhile, the Western Environmental Law Center’s seven-year litigation over the fate of the endangered spotted owl and the Pacific Northwest’s ancient forests set a new, precedent-setting course for environmental protection.  By advocating for National Forest management based on the unique needs of a bioregion, rather than the one-size fits all management, the Western Environmental Law Center instigated the creation of the groundbreaking Northwest Forest Plan – the first regional ecosystem-based management plan in the nation.