At the end of March 2026, the Sea Grant Law & Policy Journal published a special issue featuring articles that grew out of the April 2025 Chesapeake Rising Law Symposium. Organized by Maryland Sea Grant–ALEI Law and Policy Fellow Kerry McClaughry, the symposium was held on April 2, 2025, at Georgetown Law’s Climate Center, in partnership with the Environmental Law Institute.
The symposium highlighted emerging legal scholarship on innovative approaches to climate adaptation in the Chesapeake Bay region. It brought together legal scholars and scientists with expertise in their respective fields to collaborate with a select group of emerging legal researchers and scholars. Through this collaborative process, symposium participants developed their presentations into new, peer-reviewed legal scholarship addressing important legal and policy questions surrounding climate resilience in the Chesapeake Bay.
Kerry played an important role throughout this process, guiding the young legal researchers and scholars selected to participate from the symposium through the research, writing, and revision process and ultimately to publication of their law journal articles. The resulting special issue represents an important contribution to the growing body of legal scholarship examining how law and policy can support climate adaptation and resilience in the Chesapeake Bay region.
The special issue of the Sea Grant Law & Policy Journal is available here, and more information about the Chesapeake Rising Law Symposium is available here.
As Kerry’s fellowship comes to an end, we are grateful for her contributions to Maryland Sea Grant, ALEI, and this important body of work. We are also excited to welcome Renata Chavez, who will begin her Maryland Sea Grant–ALEI Law and Policy Fellowship on September 28. More information about the fellowship is available here.
