Associate Dean for Research and Faculty Development and Professor of Law
Phone: (410) 706-7456BA and MA, 2003, Stanford University
JD, with distinction, 2007, Stanford University
Michael Pappas teaches primarily in the areas of property, natural resource, and environmental law. His scholarship draws upon interdisciplinary influences associated with economics and political economy, and his work explores the nature of property expectations, governmental responsibilities, and private rights in managing resources such as land, energy, water, wildlife, fisheries, and food. Professor Pappas has also worked extensively to advance interdisciplinary teaching and research collaborations throughout the University System of Maryland. He was voted Outstanding Faculty Member of the Year in 2014.
Prior to joining the law school, Professor Pappas was a Forrester Fellow and Instructor in Legal Writing at Tulane University Law School, where he also taught international and domestic fisheries law. In addition, he taught natural resources law as an adjunct professor at Loyola University New Orleans College of Law and served as an instructor for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers PROSPECT Training Program, where he taught environmental law and regulation. After law school, he clerked for the Hon. James L. Dennis, U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit.
Professor Pappas holds bachelor's and master's degrees in English Literature from Stanford University, and he received his JD from Stanford Law School, where he was the co-Editor-in-Chief of the Stanford Environmental Law Journal and a member of the Stanford Environmental Law Clinic. He is admitted to the California Bar.
Disclaiming Property, 42 Harvard Environmental Law Review (forthcoming 2018).
A Right to be Regulated?, 24 George Mason Law Review 99 (2016).
Singled Out, 76 Maryland Law Review 122 (2016). [Full Text]
The Armstrong Evolution, 76 Maryland Law Review Endnotes 35 (2016). [Full Text]
Distributed, Nega-, and Reclaimed: Setting Expectations in the "New" Resource Base, 32 Pace Environmental Law Review 471 (2015). [Full Text]
Defining Power Property Expectations, 45 Environmental Law Reporter News & Analysis 10542 (2015). [Full Text]
Energy Versus Property, 41 Florida State University Law Review 435 (2014). [Full Text]
Anti-Waste, 56 Arizona Law Review 741 (2014). [Full Text]
Escaping the Sporhase Maze: Protecting State Waters Within the Commerce Clause, 73 Louisiana Law Review 175 (2012) (with Mark S. Davis). [Full Text]
Unnatural Resource Law: Situating Desalination in Coastal Resource and Water Law Doctrines, 86 Tulane Law Review 81 (2011). [Full Text]
No Two-Stepping in the Laboratories: State Deference Standards and their Implications for Improving the Chevron Doctrine, 39 McGeorge Law Review 977 (2008). [Full Text]
Buying the Way to a Better Gulf Fishery: Buybacks for Hurricane Relief and Fisheries Rationalization in the Gulf of Mexico, 36 Environmental Law Reporter 10800 (2006). [Full Text]