Sean Hecht

Sean B. Hecht
Co-Executive Director of the Emmett Institute on Climate Change and the Environment, UCLA School of Law

Sean B. Hecht is the Co-Executive Director of the Emmett Institute on Climate Change and the Environment, and Evan Frankel Professor of Policy and Practice, at UCLA School of Law. He works with students to serve environmental advocacy organizations and public agencies in his role as co-director of the Frank G. Wells Environmental Law Clinic. Sean’s research interests include coastal climate change adaptation; the intersection of insurance and climate risk; public lands; environmental justice; and environmental impact analysis. He co-authored a widely-cited article on the President’s authority to abolish or diminish National Monuments [Mark Squillace, Eric Biber, Nicholas S. Bryner, & Sean B. Hecht, Presidents Lack the Authority to Abolish or Diminish National Monuments, 103 Va. L. Rev. Online 55 (2017), and the leading legal academic article on climate change and insurance. Climate Change and the Transformation of Risk: Insurance Matters, 55 UCLA Law Review 1559 (2008). Along with co-counsel in Center for Biological Diversity v. Department of Fish and Wildlife (Newhall Ranch), he received the 2016 California Lawyer Attorney of the Year (CLAY) Award for environmental law. Sean is a past chair of the State Bar of California’s environmental law section, and the founding (past) board chair of the Harbor Community Benefit Foundation. He blogs at http://legal-planet.org.