Natural Resources Law at UGA,
from someone who took it.
JURI 4810, cross-listed as FANR and ECOL 4810, is the one law-school course most undergraduates at UGA will ever take: the required course of the Environmental Law minor, an elective for ecology majors, taught every spring at the School of Law. I took it. I don’t know of anyone else who tutors it.
It is the first law class you will take.
It reads like none of the others.
The course is statutes, cases and regulations on how natural resources are conserved, allocated and developed. The content is not the hard part. The hard part is that an ecology or forestry major arrives having never read a statute or a judicial opinion, and the first assignment assumes they can. The reading is dense in a way science reading is not: the structure of an opinion, what a holding is, how a regulation sits under a statute, why one case controls and another is distinguished. Students who learn to read that way in the first two weeks do well. Students who read it like a textbook fall behind on the one thing the cumulative final tests.
I learned it the same way, in the same room, under the same grading. I tutor UGA students every week in courses I took, and this is the one with the fewest places to get help. The work is the material, not the assignments: how to read a case, how the statutes fit together, how a doctrine becomes a short answer under time. I say exactly where that line is below, because the syllabus draws it and I keep to it.
What I tutor
Reading a case
Facts, issue, rule, reasoning, holding. How to brief an opinion in ten minutes instead of an hour, and how to tell which part of a long case the course actually cares about.
Start here →The statutes and the regulations
NEPA, the Endangered Species Act, the Clean Water Act and the Clean Air Act: how a statute, its regulations and the cases interpreting it fit together, so each unit is not a fresh start.
What the course covers →Doctrine into short answer
The cumulative final is multiple choice and short answer. We practise turning a doctrine, the Penn Central factors or the NEPA sequence, into a three-sentence answer under time, which is a different skill from knowing it.
About the final →The pre-law student
If 4810 is a test run for law school, we talk about what the course tells you and what it does not, and how it fits with the pre-law courses and the LSAT timeline.
Pre-law at UGA →What the course covers, in order.
From the public syllabus and the cases it assigns, which are public opinions. The professor’s schedule varies by year; the shape does not.
| Unit | The law | Cases you will read | What trips people up |
|---|---|---|---|
| The legal system | Trial to appeal, federalism, jurisdiction, state law against federal law | Hardin, The Tragedy of the Commons, as the frame | Reading an opinion for the holding instead of the story |
| Nuisance | The common-law claim that predates every statute | Weinhold v. Wolff; Morgan v. High Penn Oil | Telling a private from a public nuisance, and what the remedy is |
| Takings | Eminent domain; total and partial regulatory takings | Kelo v. City of New London; Lucas v. South Carolina Coastal Council; Penn Central | The three-factor test, and when a regulation becomes a taking |
| NEPA | The assessment, the impact statement, the finding of no significant impact, categorical exclusions, public comment | Robertson v. Methow Valley; Calvert Cliffs; Standing Rock Sioux Tribe v. Army Corps | That NEPA is procedural: a “hard look”, not a required outcome |
| The Endangered Species Act | Listing, consultation, take, critical habitat | TVA v. Hill; Babbitt v. Sweet Home; Weyerhaeuser v. FWS; Gibbs v. Babbitt | Keeping sections 4, 7 and 9 apart under time |
| Water rights | Riparian, prior appropriation, regulated riparianism | California v. FERC; the Colorado River compact as a case study | Which system a state uses, and what “first in time” actually decides |
| The Clean Water Act | Discharge, point source, navigable waters; permits under 402, 404 and 401 | Sackett v. EPA; County of Maui v. Hawaii Wildlife Fund | The trigger elements, and how narrow “waters of the United States” has become |
| The Clean Air Act and beyond | A health-based statute; then certifications, consumer demand, corporate responsibility, environmental justice | Current reading rather than opinions | Knowing what the statutes do not reach, and what fills the gap |
Spring 2025 syllabus, Parts I and II. Assignments in the course are essays, reading quizzes and case briefs; the final is cumulative, multiple choice and short answer.
The course, for the record.
Who this is for.
The ecology, forestry or environmental science major who registered for 4810 because the minor requires it and opened the first case with no idea what a holding was. The pre-law junior who wants to know whether law school is for them before the LSAT decides it. The graduate student in 6810 who has the science and not the reading.
It is not for a student who wants the assignments done, or who hopes a tutor comes with a shortcut through the reading. There is no shortcut. There is a method, and it is learnable in two weeks.
Registering for spring? Registration by assigned date opens in November. If 4810 is on your list, the first two weeks of class are the time to start, before the first assignment is due. How I think about course planning at UGA →
Questions I get
Anything not covered here, ask me directly. (706) 389-0528.
Tell me where you are in the course.
Your major, the semester you are taking 4810, and what is giving you trouble: the reading, the cases, or the exam. I reply within a day. (706) 389-0528 if a call is easier.