Click here to view a special tribute page to the retirement of Marc McGinnes.

J. Marc McGinnes retired from his regular teaching duties in 2005 as a Senior Senate Lecturer in the Environmental Studies Program, capping a distinguished teaching career at UCSB that began in 1972. He developed and taught ten courses in the areas of environmental law, policy, dispute resolution, and ecopsychology, including the longest running undergraduate course in environmental law in the United States. He also taught courses in the Law and Society Program and the Global Peace and Security Program. He was the recipient of numerous teaching honors and awards, including the UCSB Alumni Association Outstanding Teaching Award.

In addition to his teaching, Mr. McGinnes has pursued parallel careers as both an environmental lawyer (one who applies legal principles to environmental problems) and a legal ecologist (one who applies ecological principles to legal problems). In 1970 he led the founding of one of America's first ecology centers, the Community Environmental Council of Santa Barbara, and in 1977 one of the first public interest environmental law firms, the Environmental Defense Center. He is a former director of Congress on Optimum Population and Environment, Chicago, and Earth Island Institute, San Francisco.

As a legal ecologist, Mr. McGinnes' presentations on Using and Practicing Law as a Healing Art have been featured at numerous conferences on peacemaking, conflict resolution and environmental law. He is a founder and director of the Peaceful Resolutions Institute and Community Mediation Program of Santa Barbara.

Education:
Stanford University, B.A. History
University of California, Berkeley, Boalt Hall School of Law, J.D.
University of Nancy, France, post-J.D. research.