Erin Okuno

A Stetson Law alum, Professor Erin Okuno graduated at the top of her class in 2013 and received the Edward D. Foreman Most Distinguished Student Award. Her ties to Stetson Law run deep—as a student, she was editor-in-chief of Stetson Law Review and a member of Stetson Law’s award-winning Moot Court Board, and she later worked at Stetson Law as the Foreman Biodiversity Fellow for the Institute for Biodiversity Law and Policy, an advocacy skills trainer, and an adjunct and visiting professor. Professor Okuno most recently taught Legal Communication and Research Skills and Animal Law at University of Miami School of Law, and she previously taught at Mitchell Hamline School of Law, Georgia State University’s J. Mack Robinson College of Business, and University of South Florida Honors College.

She currently serves as the faculty advisor for Stetson Law Review and Stetson Law’s Student Animal Legal Defense Fund. Her teaching and scholarship interests include legal research and writing, animal law, and environmental law, particularly the intersection of the First Amendment and agriculture, as well as rights of Nature, wetlands, and endangered species. For several years, she worked with a small team of attorneys to prepare amici curiae briefs on behalf of scientists and scientific organizations in cases related to the Clean Water Act and its administrative regulations. In 2020, Justice Breyer cited the team’s amici curiae brief in his majority opinion in the U.S. Supreme Court case County of Maui v. Hawaii Wildlife Fund.

She earned her B.A., summa cum laude, in psychology from Georgia Institute of Technology, where her honors included the President’s Undergraduate Research Award.

Curriculum Vitae