The Nature Conservancy. Protecting nature. Preserving life.™

The Conservation Law Center is a non-profit organization established as a Midwest-based advocate for natural resource conservation and located at Indiana University in Bloomington. The Center serves its clients using all of the tools and approaches that law firms use, but it accepts as clients only those whose issues involve advocacy (in the broadest sense of the word) for natural resources and who are non-profit or governmental organizations.

The Center is managed with three main objectives: (1) to make positive contributions to the solution of conservation problems; (2) to contribute to the development of a more effective body of conservation law and policy; and (3) to educate second and third year law students through a closely collaborative process involving Center staff attorneys and Center clients. In practice, the Center assists a wide variety of natural resources conservation organizations and units of government by:

• resolving organization and incorporation problems
• drafting model legislation
• advocating before administrative and judicial bodies for conservation of wildlife, ecological systems, and protected areas
• providing legal support for land conservation through acquisition

One of the Conservation Law Center's goals is to promote the development of more effective conservation law and policy. We make our work public whenever it does not conflict with confidentiality requirements. We will post public documents on our website as they become available.

Most of the Center's resources are dedicated to a joint venture with the Indiana University Maurer School of Law: a Conservation Law Clinic. The Law School provides the Clinic space, telecommunications services, and administrative support. The Center teaches and supervises law students, who practice conservation advocacy on behalf of the Clinic's clients.