Power Surge

Sierra Killian ’24 came to law school with an interest in environmental law and climate resilience, but not much prior exposure to the energy field. Through Clean Energy Leaders in Law (CELL) — a student-led group entering its third year — a whole new world has opened up to her.

As a 1L, speaking with CELL’s inaugural leaders Nadia Senter ’22 and Max Learner ’23 made Killian realize she could work directly on projects related to the energy grid’s resilience to climate impacts.

“I was hooked,” says Killian, now a co-leader of CELL herself. “Since then, I have enjoyed getting insight into other aspects of the growing but still fairly niche field of clean energy law.”

One of 40 Student-Initiated Legal Services Projects within Berkeley Law’s Pro Bono Program, CELL aims to help bring equity to the renewable energy sector through policy and legal work. One focus area: low-income neighborhoods and communities of color, which are disproportionately affected by the intensifying burdens of climate change yet often lack access to even basic renewable energy alternatives, such as residential solar panels.

Will Kosinski ’24 had a fairly narrow view of environmental law career paths before joining the group, whose students’ interests range from intellectual property and land use to litigation and the finance side of energy transactions.

“I’ve come to see just how many different types of people and types of work are involved in the energy sector,” he says. “I’m seeing just how many different directions this career pathway can take me — which is very exciting, because I see there’s a lot of opportunity.”

Earlier this year, some CELL students literally got to put their hands on a renewable energy project: After realizing he didn’t have a full understanding of how residential solar works “behind the meter,” as he calls it, Kosinski helped organize a residential solar installation for a client of GRID Alternatives in Richmond.

Amid the group’s extensive legal research and policy advocacy work, Kosinski says the project helped provide students with a valuable ground-level experience.

“We understand the importance of what we’re doing,” he adds. “But sometimes it’s really nice to be reminded of the end result — actually putting solar panels on a person’s home, helping them save energy and money.”

CELL’s formation was closely followed by the arrival of Professor Sharon Jacobs, whose research is heavily grounded in the energy sector, giving the school’s energy community new life. The group works with and is supervised by Andie Wyatt of GRID Alternatives and Sarah Keane ’10, a partner at Kaplan Kirsch & Rockwell.

“I’ve been super impressed with the students,” Keane says. “It’s been really fun to see their initiative in organizing and putting this together … This is such an important issue, bringing together social justice and climate change and having a real impact on people’s lives.” — Gwyneth K. Shaw