Madeline Kass

Biography

Professor Kass is a frequent visiting professor and Distinguished Scholar in Residence at Seattle University School of Law where she also serves as a faculty advisor for the Seattle Journal of Technology, Environment, and Innovation Law (formerly, the Seattle Journal of Environmental Law) and the Seattle Environmental Law Society.  She is also a visiting professor and scholar at the University of Milan in Italy where she teaches in the Interdisciplinary Approaches to Climate Change master’s program.  As a 2019 Fulbright recipient, she held a visiting scholar appointment at the College of Europe in Belgium, and as a 2022 ISSR Global Scholar, she held a visiting fellow position at the University of Dundee in Scotland.

Professor Kass is active in the American Bar Association (ABA). She currently serves on Council for the ABA Section of Environment, Energy & Resources (SEER) and on the Editorial Board of the SEER’s publication National Resources & Environment.  She is a past-chair and continues on the leadership committees of both the ABA's Endangered Species and International Environmental and Resources Law committees.

In past years she has served as Chair and Executive Committee member of the AALS Natural Resources & Energy Section; Chair of the Public Interest Grant Selection Committee of the Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual and Transgender Bar Association of Washington (QLaw); on the Board of Directors and Legal Committee of the Puget Soundkeepers Alliance; and as a member of the Washington State Board of Bar Examiners.

Prior to entering academia, Professor Kass practiced law for close to a decade in the Seattle offices of Preston Gates & Ellis (now K&L Gates) and Heller Ehrman White & McAuliffe. Her practice focused on environmental compliance and land use. She earned her J.D. from the University of California, Berkeley Law, and M.E.S. from Yale University School of the Environment. She clerked for the Massachusetts State Superior Court just after law school.