University of Georgia
School of Law
206 Hirsch Hall
Athens, GA 30602
United States
B.A., Arizona State University
J.D., Columbia University
M.P.P., Ph.D. University of California, Berkeley
Environmental Law
Renewable Energy Law and Policy
Climate Change Law Seminar
Dr. Adam D. Orford's interdisciplinary research focuses on deep decarbonization of the global industrial economy. He has examined regulatory approaches to climate emissions control, legal strategies to promote cleantech infrastructure investment, legal barriers to phasing out fossil fuel-fired electricity, legal frameworks for governing international carbon credit trading, legal options for promoting global renewable energy development, and legal impact assessment of energy and climate tax and spending programs. Orford was a member of the American Bar Association’s in-person delegation to the 29th Conference of Parties to the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change in Baku, Azerbaijan.
His recent scholarship has appeared or is forthcoming in Ecology Law Quarterly, the Columbia Journal of Environmental Law, the Georgetown Environmental Law Review and Frontiers in Climate. He regularly serves as a peer reviewer for climate policy journals. As an educator and mentor, he passionately supports law student success and career development.
Orford earned his J.D. from Columbia Law School, his Ph.D. from the University of California, Berkeley, Energy & Resources Group and his Master of Public Policy from the UC Berkeley Goldman School of Public Policy. Prior to returning to the academy, he was an environmental litigator in private practice, representing public and private clients in complex environmental civil litigation and regulatory matters. In law school, he served as the editor-in-chief of the Columbia Journal of Environmental Law.
He joined the University of Georgia School of Law in the fall of 2021.
ARTICLES
Legal Reforms for a Low-Carbon Electricity Grid: Lessons from the United States, in Climate Change and Infrastructure Law (forthcoming 2025).
Overselling BIL and IRA, 51 Ecology L. Quarterly ___ (forthcoming 2025).
Blue Carbon Law, 13 Sea Grant L. & Pol'y J. 9 (2024).
Blue Carbon, Red States, and Paris Agreement Article 6, 6 Frontiers in Climate (2024).
Natural Gas and Net Zero: Mutually Exclusive Pathways for the Southeast, 39 Ga. St. U. L. Rev. 1033 (2023) (invited symposium contribution).
Rate Base the Charge Space: The Law of Utility EV Infrastructure Investment, 48 Columbia J. Env't L. 1 (2022).
Clean Air Act Section 115: Is the IPCC a "Duly Constituted International Agency"?, 34 Geo. Env't L. Rev. 215 (2022).
The Clean Air Act of 1963: Postwar Environmental Politics and the Debate Over Federal Power, 27 Hastings Env't L. J. 1 (2021).
Nation’s Business and the Environment: the U.S. Chamber’s Changing Relationships with DDT, “Ecologists,” Regulations, and Renewable Energy, 12 J. Env't Stud. & Sci. 100 (2021).
Tools for Regulators in a Changing Climate: Proposed Standards, State Policies, and Case Studies from the Western Grid, 32 Geo. Env't L. Rev. 227 (2020).