CYNTHIA A. DREW, Ph.D., J.D.
cadrew@central.uh.edu; 713.743.2778 (w)
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Cynthia Drew, also an environmental attorney and Florida certified circuit civil court mediator, is 2009-2010 visiting associate professor of law, University of Houston Law Center, where this fall she is teaching land use and a disaster law seminar. In the spring she will teach administrative law and natural resources law. Professor Drew has regularly taught these courses (including energy law) at the University of Miami School of Law, where she and a volcanologist also team-taught an innovative undergraduate introduction to ecosystems course. She has been a visiting professor at Seattle University School of Law and Lewis & Clark Law School (Portland, Oregon), and an adjunct professor at Columbus School of Law, Catholic University, and Northwestern University Law School.

Professor Drew recently co-edited a peer-reviewed book for Island Press, Large-Scale Ecosystem Restoration: Five Case Studies from the United States, published in conjunction with the Society for Ecological Restoration International.  The interdisciplinary book focuses on current restoration projects for the Everglades, Chesapeake Bay, Upper Mississippi River, Platte River, and California Bay Delta. Professor Drew authored the book’s chapter analyzing science, policy, and dispute resolution challenges confronting agency restoration/conservation/management efforts for the Upper Mississippi River. She has also published on Everglades and Endangered Species Act issues; her environmental and natural resources work focuses on statutory and regulatory issues in areas of scientific complexity. Her next book, Disastrous Betrayal: New Orleans, Katrina, and the United States, has been accepted for publication and is being revised.

Ms. Drew previously served in the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ), Environment and Natural Resources Division, Environmental Defense Section, Washington, DC, where her practice focused on Clean Water Act, Clean Air Act (CAA), and Superfund matters in federal district and appellate courts. There she was awarded two U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Bronze Medals and DOJ’s Special Commendation for Outstanding Service. She prevailed in a DC Circuit challenge, then drafted the successful United States brief opposing the Supreme Court’s grant of certiorari, for an EPA rule establishing tribal jurisdiction for CAA regulation. Arizona Public Service Company v. EPA is featured in the Native American environmental/natural resources law casebook. Ms. Drew also led federal defendants in negotiations that resulted in settling the Fifth Circuit Houston CAA transportation conformity case in former Representative Tom Delay’s district.

            While in Jenner & Block’s Environmental Law Department (Chicago), Ms. Drew served as litigation and corporate counsel, from pro bono representation in Cook County criminal cases and a Third Circuit appeal of a widow’s denial of black-lung benefits, to defense of wetlands and Safe Drinking Water Act enforcement matters, to due diligence in major transactions and CAA permitting for midwestern and southeastern paper mills.  She published a chapter analyzing the leading Chicago indoor environmental quality case in Keeping Buildings Healthy: How to Monitor and Prevent Indoor Environmental Problems.  Her analyses of banking regulators’ environmental risk management rules and changing practices were twice published in The Review of Banking and Financial Services. 

After graduating with honors from Northwestern University School of Law, Ms. Drew clerked for the late Honorable Douglas W. Hillman, United States District Court, Western District of Michigan. Her B.A. summa cum laude with honors in English is from Newcomb College, Tulane University. While earning a Ph.D. and M.A. (in Renaissance drama and history) from Vanderbilt University, Dr. Drew also served the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Nashville District, as technical writer and public affairs officer. She later served as the South Florida Water Management District’s first intergovernmental representative to St. Lucie County.

There Ms. Drew initiated and led year-long political/technical processes resulting in unanimous passage of a first wellfield protection ordinance by all County and City governing boards. She served as program manager for the team of interdisciplinary technical professionals who drafted the District’s first Surface Water and Management Plan for the Indian River Lagoon (now an Estuary of National Significance) -- precursor to the Lagoon’s current $1.36 billion proposed cleanup (now part of the initial $8 billion comprehensive Everglades restoration plan).

Ms. Drew has practiced before and is a member of several U.S. district courts and courts of appeals throughout the country, and has been admitted to the bars of Illinois and Florida.  She has been active in the American Bar Association’s Section of Environment, Energy, and Resources; Section of Administrative Law and Agency Practice; and Standing Committee on Environmental Law. As an elected member of the Governing Board, Civic Association of Hollin Hills (CAHH) (Alexandria), Ms. Drew served as representative to the Southern Fairfax County Community Council. During her tenure, CAHH brought and settled the second lawsuit in its 50-year history to enforce general real estate covenants of harmony and conformity with its contemporary design and scenic vistas.