Maryland Governor takes strike at University of Maryland's Environmental Law Clinic…Again

by Kristen Pavón

Last year, we told you all about the controversy surrounding U. of Maryland’s Environmental Law Clinic’s case against chicken farmers, or as we called it — Big Chicken.

Just to catch you up to speed —

The clinic is representing the Waterkeeper Alliance, a New York-based environmental group with 18 chapters in Maryland. The group filed suit in March 2010 against Perdue and the Hudsons, who raise more than a half-million chickens a year on their 293-acre farm, after spotting water running into a drainage ditch from a pile of what was later identified as treated sewage sludge. The group also measured high levels of bacteria from waste in the ditch, which ultimately drains into the Pocomoke River.

[Gov.] O’Malley voiced his concern last year about the clinic’s lawsuit, when rural legislators unhappy with the case threatened but eventually backed off from withholding funds for the law school.

After about 19 months, Gov. Martin O’ Malley has renewed his complaints about the ongoing case.

In a letter that became public Thursday, O’Malley wrote to law school Dean Phoebe Haddon this week to complain about the “ongoing injustice” of the environmental law clinic pursuing “costly litigation of questionable merit” against Alan and Kristin Hudson, who raise chickens for Perdue on their Worcester County farm.

“He just thinks it’s gotten to the point of being a misuse of resources,” Guillory said. . . .

Haddon countered that the governor’s letter contained “some inaccuracies,” though she did not cite any. She noted that a judge had denied an early motion by the Hudsons and Perdue to dismiss the case. She told O’Malley that the state’s rules of professional conduct bar the clinic from dropping its client, and she warned that his views, which have now become public, could prejudice the case and interfere with the student lawyers’ relationship with their clients.

“I urge you to let the judicial process resolve this matter,” she concluded.

Read more here.