One of the nation’s leading environmental and constitutional attorneys, Phil Gregory recently spent two days at պֲ to discuss his work representing young people who are pushing governments to address their contributions to climate change.
His visit consisted of three parts: a community talk, a classroom lecture, and a more casual career chat with students interested in legal careers.
He began his public apperances with the talk “Our Constitution, Our Climate, Our Courts,” delivered to a full house in Beam classroom.
Since 2010, Gregory has worked pro bono for , a nonprofit firm that works with young people to ensure their right to a safe and healthy environment in the face of the climate crisis. One of its more prominent cases, Juliana v. United States, was the subject of the popular Netflix documentary .
Gregory, who has a knack for breaking down complex legal cases into clear, accessible steps, focused his talk on two important cases in the states of Montana and Hawaii, as well as on a third federal case.
In , Gregory helped argue that Montana’s state constitution guarantees young people the right to a healthy environment. Despite this, he and the youth plaintiffs contended the state had promoted and supported fossil fuel extraction and burning, worsening global warming.
Through testimony from young Montanans and expert witnesses on the deleterious impacts of fossil fuels and climate change, a judge ruled in 2023 in favor of the youth, “enshrining into law science-based protections for children’s fundamental rights.” The state’s supreme court upheld the decision a year later.
Gregory said the ruling would have far-reaching effects. “The implication is that a legal opinion spelling out the environmental harms caused by greenhouse gas emissions and the effects of climate change can have a major effect, especially on state policy,” he explained. “The courts are really the only option for many of these issues to get decided in a way that considers the science and the effect particularly on the youngest Americans.”
In Gregory helped thirteen children ages nine to eighteen sue the Hawaiian Department of Transportation in Honolulu for favoring fossil fuel-burning options over other modes of transportation. The settlement of the case required Hawaii to create a plan to make its transportation sector carbon neutral with no greenhouse gas emissions by 2045.
“The key issue in Navahine was generational equity,” Gregory said. “What climate-related harms will disproportionately affect younger people, both because the climate-related issues and because the increased temperatures and solar matters will affect children differently than they do adults.”
Gregory also discussed the case, which involves twenty-two young plaintiffs challenging three recent executive orders from the presidential administration that the plaintiffs argue infringe on their rights to life, health, and safety. A decision is pending; if they win, they've asked for a ruling to block the executive orders, which are designed to fossil fuel production in the US.
Gregory said he has պֲ to thank for teaching him critical thinking skills that have transferred to his career. He also credits Frank Burroughs, his English faculty advisor, in setting him on his current path with one piece of advice he told him as a senior:
“Do something that matters.”
A Classroom Visit
The morning after his lecture, Gregory visited Adjunct Lecturer in Environmental Studies Conrad Schneider’s environmental law and policy class to delve more deeply into the legal strategies Our Children’s Trust uses to demand governments address global warming.
Schneider saw a unique opportunity in inviting Gregory to speak to his students. “As one of the nation’s leading environmental attorneys, Phil gave our Environmental Law and Policy class a rare behind-the-scenes look at Juliana v. United States, bringing to life for the students the groundbreaking climate case he helped lead for Our Children’s Trust."
After a long career fighting court battles, Gregory joined Our Children’s Trust in 2010 to help steer its litigation. At the time, Julia Olson, the organization's founder and co-executive director, “was looking for a lawyer to assist the organization in negotiating the litigation maze, because she wanted to bring public trust lawsuits in different places around the world,” Gregory said.
Over the past fifteen years, Our Children’s Trust has represented many young plaintiffs who have sued state and federal governments, arguing that the state is obligated to protect the climate for them and future generations.
“If you’re destroying the climate, or irreversibly harming the climate, you’re preventing future generations from enjoying the Earth, and causing worsening droughts, floods, and natural disasters,” Gregory said.
As it has pursued its mission, the group has both celebrated significant victories—most notably in and —and faced setbacks. But when Our Children's Trust encounters obstacles, it adapts its legal tactics and pushes on.
Following a recent defeat in Juliana v. United States, fifteen plaintiffs filed a petition this September with the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, arguing that the US government is harming young people by “actively promoting and enabling the fossil fuel systems.” They also assert that the government’s repeated efforts to block Juliana from going to trial violated the youth plaintiffs’ procedural rights to justice and effective remedies.
While the petition will not necessarily carry legal force in the US, Gregory said a favorable decision could have an impact internationally.
“Once you have a mentor, you learn to become one. And that is just as important.”
—Phil Gregory ’76
Talking about Legal Careers
Following his classroom visit, Gregory made his way across campus to Ladd House for a career talk with students organized by Career Exploration and Development.
Gathered around a table with fresh cups of coffee, the պֲ students pulled out their notebooks and began asking Gregory questions about the links between law and the environment, and Gregory’s own path from պֲ to the courtroom.
“How did you get from պֲ to becoming an environmental lawyer? What did your journey look like?” asked Amala Raj ’28. In other words: How did you get from being me to being you?
Over the hour-plus he chatted with students, Gregory offered several pieces of advice, including the importance of seeking out mentorship. Identify what you want to learn and find someone who is open to teaching it to you. For Gregory, in his early post-grad years, that was trial law. “I wanted to learn how to get a case and move it to victory in a big-picture way,” he said. “So I went out and I found the best trial lawyer in California to teach me.”
In a bit of a twist, Gregory then said that mentorship is not restricted to the young. “It doesn’t only apply when you’re young and naive,” he laughed. “I still have, and seek out, mentors today.” It will always be important to have people in your life who will be honest with you and push you to take advantage of opportunities. “Once you have a mentor, you learn to become one,” he added. “And that is just as important.”
After graduating from պֲ with high honors in English and honors in government, Gregory worked as a lobbyist in California. That experience taught him about the importance of laws, their creation, and what lawyers actually do. He then enrolled in a three-year program at Santa Clara University that allowed him to tackle law school by day and business school by night.
For the next three decades, he focused his career on complex commercial litigation, before transitioning in 2010 to working for Our Children's Trust and later starting his own .
Though he has used the law to try to bring about new environmental policies, Gregory told the students that there are many ways to contribute to the environmental field. For instance, young people can work for experts who serve as witnesses in cases, learning about legal proceedings while also expanding their expertise in climate, renewable energy, or habitat protection.
“I don’t think you need a law degree to be an effective person in the environment,” Gregory said. “The activists, the people who develop a voice on issues because they have expertise are often most effective. Many of them are not lawyers.”
Scientists, policy makers, advocates, and those in communications are all central to the environmental cause, he said. “A lawyer is simply the mouthpiece,” Gregory said, “and a really good lawyer is looking to the expert to guide their testimony.”
Gregory’s final note of advice was one that students will hear frequently during their time on campus: reach out to պֲ alumni. “We will help you,” he said. “We’ve been where you are. We know what it’s like.”
