Cymie Payne Boalt

Cymie Payne is an expert in natural resource and environmental law. She joined the Boalt Hall faculty in 2006 after working for international and domestic entities engaged in environmental regulation and advocacy. Following graduation from Boalt in 1997 with an environmental certificate, Payne served as an attorney-advisor in the Solicitor’s Honors Program at the U.S. Department of the Interior, where she advised a host of governmental agencies on land claims, endangered species protection, tribal rights and other issues. She also worked in the environmental department of Goodwin Procter’s offices in Boston. Before law school, Payne served as the executive director of Earth Access, a nonprofit forest conservation organization that she founded in Cambridge, Mass. Payne was employed from 1999 to 2005 by the United Nations Compensation Commission. As a senior attorney, she was responsible for an international team of lawyers and technical experts assessing claims of damage to the environment and public health from conflict in the Persian Gulf. In this position, she supported a panel of commissioners involved in landmark decisions that granted war reparations for environmental damage. In addition to teaching at Boalt, Payne serves as the associate director of the California Center for Environmental Law & Policy (CCELP) and as director of the Global Commons Project, which seeks to extend the influence of environmental law on global policy.