DEFENDING THE ENVIRONMENT

A recent book claims the Justice Department is the best place for anyone with a law degree to work. And a lawyer practicing environmental law would find a comfortable niche in the department's Environment & Natural Resources Division (ENRD), administered for more than five years by Assistant Attorney General Lois J. Schiffer. ENRD—414 attorneys strong—likes to bill itself as the nation's largest environmental law firm. Division attorneys serve as the lawyers in court for any federal agency, but especially the Environmental Protection Agency, enforcing or defending its regulations and policies. And, despite its low profile before the general public, the division's work, directly or indirectly, affects nearly all citizens. The division was created in 1909 as the Public Lands Division, concerned primarily with federal lands and water and American Indian disputes. But over the years, its mantle has broadened to include stewardship of the nation's natural resources, the taking of private land for public use an...