On May 8, Judge Louis H. Pollak passed away. I served as law clerk to Pollak at the beginning of my career. He was, to be sure, a great man and one who loved parentheticals, including the ubiquitous “to be sure” but he was, for many of us, more important as an example of how a lawyer can at the same time be a fine human being. If there was a graceful way to address a litigation situation or a legal problem, he would follow it. He was always the best lawyer in whichever room he was in, and he never tried to make anyone notice or acknowledge it.
Other encomia (a word he might have used) will set forth Pollak’s accomplishments. Not many of them had much to do with environmental law, although he did preside over the Moyers Landfill litigation for many years. His career in practice notably on Thurgood Marshall’s team that litigated Brown v. Board of Education and as a scholar focused on civil rights and civil liberties. It seems fitting, then, in this space to consider where the “environmental justice” program stands.
