A graduate of the College of William and Mary, Zach Pilchen served as an Associate Editor for Environmental Law, the oldest environmental law journal in the country. He has also excelled in various moot court competitions. In addition to taking home Outstanding Appellate Brief and Outstanding Oral Advocacy awards during his first year, Mr. Pilchen’s moot court achievements include a third-place finish in the 2012 National Moot Court Competition and current participation in the National Animal Law Competition. Zach Pilchen also assisted his fellow law students as a teaching assistant in the Legal Writing Department. In this role, he tutored his peers on a wide range of legal writing skills, including judicial opinions, statutes, and complaints.
Zach Pichen’s resume includes substantial experience in environmental and natural resources law outside of the classroom. This spring, Mr. Pilchen will work in a clinical position with the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Portland, Oregon, where he will assist with the prosecution of environmental crimes. Previously, Zach Pilchen has done legal work for Perkins Coie, LLP, and completed two summers as an Honors Law Clerk with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). During his first summer at EPA, Mr. Pilchen worked in the agency’s Office of Compliance and, among other things, wrote legal memoranda on the Clean Air Act and assisted with e-discovery document review for the Deepwater Horizon oil spill. The following summer, Zach Pilchen returned to EPA to work in the Office of Civil Enforcement, where Mr. Pilchen worked with EPA attorneys on cases involving the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act and the Toxic Substances Control Act.