Jacobs Public Interest Law Clinic for Democracy and the Environment

As one of the most biodiverse and populous states in the nation, Florida is ground zero for significant threats to our environment, communities, and democracy. Rising seas, sprawling development pressure, extractive industries, and intense industrial agriculture make Florida exceptionally vulnerable to climate change, poor water quality, and biodiversity loss. The mounting costs from hurricanes and flood events, harmful algae blooms, and industrial pollution highlight significant environmental injustices. Deeply linked to these injustices are ongoing attacks on voting rights, freedom of speech, assembly, access to information, public participation in government decision-making, and access to courts – vital tools for the democratic functioning of our society and for combating environmental injustices. These issues demand commonsense solutions, governmental transparency and accountability, and greater access to more inclusive decision-making.

Too often the voiceless and silenced are also the most vulnerable and impacted by environmental harms. Obstacles to participation in democracy undermine access to safeguards for air, climate, land, water, and biodiversity. Therefore, we must defend democracy to ensure a resilient environment.

Recognizing the health of our environment and of our communities are inextricably linked and entirely dependent on a functioning and just democracy, the Jacobs Law Clinic pursues and defends justice through advocacy focused on Florida’s most pressing environmental issues. It is centered on the mutually reinforcing yet independent principles of the freedom to influence and participate in decision-making and the ability to seek relief from harm.

• • Works to protect against harmful industries, permissive regulatory regimes, and corporate influence in decision-making and policies that threaten clean air, water, land, and democracy; and
  • Facilitates political, economic, cultural, and environmental self-determination through meaningful participation in decision-making, including: permitting, planning, legislation, administrative rulemaking, and litigation.

Through careful interdisciplinary investigation, law students in the Jacobs Law Clinic learn how to identify and advocate on issues while advancing law and policy to help Florida thrive by addressing 21st-century challenges.

Basic Tenets of a Healthy Democracy and Environment

Every person has a right to dignity, which includes a healthy environment. That dignity is best protected by a just democracy. The Jacobs Law Clinic seeks to protect key underpinnings of democracy: the right to vote, constitutional checks and balances, First Amendment rights of speech and assembly, and access to information.

• • Voting is the foundation of democracy. Voters must have equitable access to free and fair elections.
  • Constitutional checks and balances of the three branches of government are other cornerstones of democracy. A law-abiding, transparent elected government is essential to pass laws that reflect the will of the people and to ensure the judiciary, can fulfill its role as the impartial and accountable arbiter of what is the law of the land.
  • The power of the people to protest, petition, and influence decision-makers without fear of reprisal or other harm is vital to our system of governance.
  • Access to accurate information is vital to informed decision-making.

Jacobs Law Clinic Student Learning Outcomes

The pedagogical goal of the Jacobs Law Clinic is to prepare its students for the effective and ethical representation of clients in public interest legal practice by cultivating critical thinking and improving research, writing, and oral advocacy skills. The Jacobs Law Clinic involves a classroom component that will help prepare students to work in a collegial firm environment, generally understand U.S. environmental laws and the framework for implementing them, issue spot, effectively interview and counsel clients, and preparing professional quality work products with legal analysis both within and outside of litigation contexts.

About Dick and Joan Jacobs

Dick and Joan Jacobs married in 1953 while they were students at the University of Wisconsin. After Dick’s military service, Dick and Joan moved to Florida, and in 1967, Dick graduated from Stetson University College of Law, first in his class, magna cum laude, and with the highest score on the Florida Bar Exam. Dick commenced his legal practice in 1967 after his ten-year business career and his law firm grew to be the largest on Florida’s West Coast. In 1983, he took a leave of absence from his firm to serve as president of a bank. As a result of that experience, he wrote the book, Crash Landing­ Surviving a Business Crisis. In addition to Crash Landing, Dick has authored and co-authored several books and legal publications including Regulation of Financial Planners, Health Care Mergers and Acquisitions: Physician Practices, Professional Limited Liability Company: The Entity of Choice, Splitting Fees or Splitting Hairs-Fee Splitting and Health Care, and Asset Protection Tools for Florida Professionals: Strategies to Pursue and Strategies to Avoid, and in 2020, Democracy of Dollars, a book about the nation's troubled system of constitutional government.

In 2015, Dick joined the law firm Johnson Pope and wrote Wonderlust, a book of his photography and lessons learned trekking all seven continents. In 2016, Dick and Joan established Stetson’s Environmental Law Externship Fund, a scholarship supporting experiential learning. 

Dick and Joan soon came to the realization that the United States cannot have a thriving, healthy, and resilient environment without a thriving, healthy and resilient democracy, and in 2020 donated a generous gift to Stetson, establishing an endowed fund to create the Jacobs Public Interest Law Clinic for Democracy and the Environment. Prior to his passing in 2023, Dick spoke frequently on climate change, sea level rise and democracy issues such as voter suppression.

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For more information regarding the clinic or if you are seeking legal representation concerning a matter of democracy or the environment, contact us at 727-562-7809 or [email protected].