Sustainability Law and Policy Clinic

Sustainability Law and Policy Clinic (SLPC)

The Sustainability Law and Policy Clinic (SLPC) is LSE’s first clinic dedicated to sustainability law and policy. Launched in October 2025 as part of the Global School of Sustainability (GSoS), it is hosted by the LSE Legal Advice Centre at LSE Law School.

What we do

The SLPC connects students from across the School with live legal and policy challenges working alongside NGOs, environmental charities, law firms and public interest organisations to produce rigorous, practice-facing outputs that directly inform real debates and existing cases.

Projects range from drafting policy reports for environmental organisations, to contributing to climate litigation strategy, to developing governance frameworks for ecosystems, to supporting community-based requests for socio-ecological monitoring and campaigning.

Our projects

The SLPC brings together students, academics, and external partners to address contemporary sustainability challenges through applied legal and policy research. Working with NGOs, environmental charities, law firms and public interest organisations, the Clinic develops practical outputs that contribute to ongoing legal cases, policy debates, and environmental governance initiatives. The projects featured reflect the Clinic’s commitment to combining academic expertise with real-world impact, supporting evidence-based solutions to pressing socio-ecological issues.

Banks, Financed Emissions, and the Road to Climate Accountability

London’s first Intercollegiate Environmental Law Clinic

Global Day of Action for Climate Justice – 17 November

Our team

Directed by Dr Marie Petersmann (Assistant Professor of Law at LSE Law School), the SLPC is overseen by Prof Veerle Heyvaert (Professor at LSE Law School), Dr Joana Setzer (Associate Professorial Research Fellow at the Grantham Research Institute for Climate Change and the Environment), Diana Kirsch (Director of LSE’s Legal Advice Centre), and Chloé F. Smith (Policy Officer). Each project is supported by experts from across the LSE.

Our students

The SLPC is open to both undergraduate and postgraduate students from any LSE department. No prior expertise in environmental or sustainability law is required – only curiosity, care, and commitment to socio-ecological issues, and a willingness to work across disciplines.

Students who participate in the SLPC develop practical legal and policy skills through direct engagement with live projects; learn to collaborate across disciplines and institutions; receive expert training from academics and practitioners at the frontier of their fields; and produce published outputs that contribute to real-world sustainability debates.

Students leave the SLPC with practitioner networks, interdisciplinary research experience, public-facing engagement practice, and a published co-authored output that bears immediate impact.

Students’ commitment

SLPC projects run across the academic year on an extracurricular and voluntary basis, alongside regular studies. Students receive no academic credit, but gain a certificate of completion and, where applicable, a named authorship on published outputs and potential reference letter from the external partner and clinic supervisor or mentor.

Students selected for an SLPC project are expected to:

• Attend expert training sessions led by academics and/or practitioners;
• Take part in weekly supervision meetings with the project team;
• Contribute actively and collaboratively to research, analysis, and report-drafting;
• Present interim and final findings to external partners and the broader public.

Projects typically run from the start of Autumn term until the end of Winter term, concluding with a public-facing event where students present their findings to a wider audience.

Students are expected to commit around 5 hours of work per week to the SLPC. All projects end before the Spring break to ensure students can focus on their revisions, exams, and dissertations.

Places are offered through a competitive selection process at the start of the academic year. The recruitment process takes place in September. Each SLPC project starts the first week of Autumn term and ends the last week of Winter term (excluding reading weeks and breaks).

How to apply

Applications open during Welcome Week in September. To apply, students must complete an application form and send their CV to Chloé Ferguson Smith (c.smith19@lse.ac.uk) and the LSE Legal Advice Centre (law.lac@lse.ac.uk). The deadline for application is the last day of Welcome Week.

Shortlisted candidates will be invited to a brief interview in the first week of Autumn Term. Successful applicants are notified by the end of that week and begin the project in Week 2.