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A year after Kim Diana Connolly graduated from the University of North Carolina and well before environmental law was even a career consideration, the future law professor served as a VISTA volunteer.

Through that domestic volunteer organization, which later became Americorps, she helped create a non-profit organization – North Carolina Rural Communities Assistance Project – that still exists.

"That brought me out into the rural areas in North Carolina, where people didn't have water or waste disposal," she said. "I was seeing environmental issues from a human perspective. It changed the way I looked at the environment. Now I have a more holistic view."

Twenty years later, Connolly is a nationally respected professor of environmental law. In her eighth year on the faculty of the University of South Carolina's School of Law, she is frequently consulted for her even-handed expertise, especially in matters related to coastal development and water resources. Connolly has co-edited the American Bar Association's book on Wetlands Law and Policy and has testified before the U.S. Congress on the impact of the Clean Water Act. And she has prepared a brief for the U.S. Supreme Court on behalf of current and former members of Congress in support of the U.S. government's authority to protect wetlands and other waters of the United States.

But most of Connolly's lawyering is founded on the personal and practical lessons she learned beginning that year in North Carolina and continuing through her law practice in Washington, D.C., after her graduation from Georgetown University Law Center.

"One of the things I loved, when I came here, was the chance to be part of the faculty that teaches clinics and skills because I believe in teaching practical lawyering," she said. "That was what turned me on in law school, connecting with real people, doing real things. I try to make sure much of what I teach is practical. I make sure my students have a sense of what it is like to work with real clients."

Connolly "dabbled" in intellectual-property law with a firm in New York City for a year before moving back to Washington, D.C., where she found her niche in environmental law. She worked with three firms over six years in the D.C. area before landing a faculty position with the university's School of Law, where she has focused on teaching environmental law and related matters and lawyering-skills courses.

"When I do research, I do it thinking about its connection to people," she said. "That is how I want to interweave my scholarly work with the real world."

A recent research project Connolly completed was the lead article in the Environmental Law Reporter, the most cited environmental law journal in the country. Titled "Survey Says: Army Corps No Scalian Despot," the article is a review of customer-service surveys filled out by applicants who sought approval for various activities from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. Connolly's article refuted claims made by a few permit applicants – and repeated by Justice Scalia in a recent Supreme Court plurality opinion – that the Corps' regulatory process is overly burdensome and excessively time-consuming. The Association of State Wetland Managers has posted the article on its website because it is useful to those currently working in the wetland regulatory arena.

On another project, involving the South Carolina Sea Grant Consortium, she is creating a "pathfinder," or legal navigation guide, that will help various stakeholders – including businesses and individuals who live, work and recreate along the coast – make their way through the complex web of legal requirements.

"When you look at environmental law, there's this huge morass of laws and regulations, and you have to figure out who to talk to and what laws apply," she said. "Anybody who undertakes activity on the coast – individuals, government, anybody, even if it's a beneficial activity – still has to figure out who you need permission from. This will be giving people an idea of where to get started.

"It all goes back to practical scholarship."

Having grown up in the Cape Cod area of New England, Connolly has developed a new appreciation for natural resources through her work in environmental law.

"My view of environmental protection has changed enormously in the past five years," she said. "I used to think the environment was just beautiful, but now I recognize, viscerally, there are generations that depend on us. Global warming, among other issues, is a crisis that we need to address so my children's children can enjoy what I have."

Website: http://www.law.sc.edu/faculty/connolly/