The law school is offering an unprecedented class that gives students a role in a legal drama swirling around Pennsylvania's Marcellus shale formation.

Starting this fall, Professor Alex Geisinger began teaching Hydrofracking and the Clean Water Act, an environmental practicum.

"Obviously, fracking is a very significant, important and timely issue, particularly in Pennsylvania but for the entire Northeast and for other places as well," Geisinger said, referring to hydraulic fracturing, the process of injecting a pressurized chemical-infused liquid into rock layers to release embedded natural gas.

Fracking has the potential to release hazardous chemicals into groundwater and surface water and greenhouse gases into the air, raising environmental and health concerns. But because the process is exempt from most federal environmental laws, drillers have moved aggressively to set up operations in many states.

Controversy over the process has made it the centerpiece of law school conferences and symposia. But so far, Geisinger's is the first law school course to focus exclusively on the legal issues associated with fracking.

Geisinger created the course as a practicum, after discussing the myriad issues fracking raises with environmental advocates who asked for help with legal research and strategy.

"Because fracking came on the scene so quickly and raises a huge number of legal issues, this presented a very unique opportunity for us to really add value to the efforts of environmental advocates," Geisinger said. "The students are acting as junior associates at a public interest environmental firm."

The exemption of fracking from most federal law, combined with many concerns about its potential impact on the environment and the public, underscores the need for non-traditional approaches to legal advocacy.

"This is an area that calls for tremendously creative lawyering," Geisinger said.

Students are exploring novel ways that federal and state regulatory authorities could be enlisted to protect the public and the environment. They're also examining zoning and land-use laws and studying eminent domain.

A proposal that Pennsylvania towns hoping to capture revenues from drilling fees could only do so by forfeiting their authority over zoning is a ripe area for study, 3L Shari Berger Kulanu said.

"Historically, local government has always been in charge of zoning," Berger Kulanu said. "The degree to which the state has said they should govern this is pretty significant."