Sarah E. Light

Associate Professor of Legal Studies & Business Ethics

Contact Information

Primary Email:
lightsa@wharton.upenn.edu
Office Phone:
215-573-0575

office Address:
Jon M. Huntsman Hall, Suite 600
3730 Walnut Street
Philadelphia, PA 19104

Research Interests: Environmental law and policy, private environmental governance, legislation and statutory interpretation, the regulatory state

Links: CV, Wharton Risk Center Climate Risk & Resilience Lab, Initiative for Global Environmental Leadership, Penn Program on Regulation

Overview

Professor Light’s research examines issues at the intersection of environmental law, corporate sustainability, and business innovation. Her articles have addressed the regulatory implications of the rise of transportation platforms like Uber and Lyft; how business innovation, such as Microsoft’s adoption of a private carbon fee, can be a form of private environmental governance; and the U.S. military’s role in stimulating private technological innovation to reduce fossil fuel use in what Light has called The Military-Environmental Complex. Her articles have appeared in the Stanford Law Review, the Duke Law Journal, the UCLA Law Review, and the Vanderbilt Law Review, among others.

In 2019 and 2018, Professor Light was awarded Wharton Teaching Excellence Awards. In 2017, Professor Light was awarded an Excellence in Teaching Award in the MBA Program. In 2016, Professor Light was one of ten faculty nominated by the MBA student body for the Helen Kardon Moss Anvil Award for Outstanding MBA Teaching.

Education

JD, Yale Law School, 2000

M. Phil, Politics, Oxford University (Rhodes Scholar), 1997

A.B., Social Studies, Magna Cum Laude, Harvard University, 1995

Academic Positions Held

The Wharton School:

Associate Professor of Legal Studies and Business Ethics (with tenure), 2019-present.

Assistant Professor, 2013-2019.

Princeton University, Law and Public Affairs Fellow, 2019-2020.

Previous appointments: Columbia University, Lecturer, Earth Institute; Brooklyn Law School, Visiting Assistant Professor; Fordham Law School, Adjunct Associate Professor.

Other Positions

Assistant United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York, Civil Division, 2001-2011.

Chief, Environmental Protection Unit, United States Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York, Civil Division, 2007-2011.

Law Clerk, Honorable John M. Walker, Jr., Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, 2000-2001.

Pro Bono

Pro Bono Mediator, United States District Court for the Southern District of New York.

Pro Bono Mediator, New York Peace Institute.

Research

Sarah E. Light and Carolyn Kousky (2019), Insuring Nature, Duke Law Journal, 69, pp. 323-376.
Sarah E. Light (2019), The Role of Universities in Private Environmental Governance Experimentalism, Organization & Environment, 34, pp. 466-483.
Sarah E. Light (2019), The Law of the Corporation as Environmental Law, Stanford Law Review, 71 (1).
Sarah E. Light (2018), Regulatory Horcruxes, Duke Law Journal, 67 (8/2).
Sarah E. Light, “The Role of the Federal Government in Regulating the Sharing Economy”. In Cambridge Handbook on the Law of the Sharing Economy, edited by Nestor Davidson, Michèle Finck, and John Infranca, (Cambridge Univ. Press, 2018), (2018)
Eric Biber, Sarah E. Light, J. B. Ruhl, James Salzman (2017), Regulating Business Innovation as Policy Disruption: From the Model T to Airbnb, Vanderbilt Law Review, 70 (5), pp. 1561-1626.
Sarah E. Light (2017), Advisory Nonpreemption, Washington University Law Review, 95 (2), pp. 325-383.
Nicolas Cornell and Sarah E. Light (2017), Wrongful Benefit & Arctic Drilling, UC Davis Law Review, 50, pp. 1845-1909.
Sarah E. Light and Eric W. Orts, “Public and Private Procurement in Environmental Governance”. In Policy Instruments in Environmental Law, edited by Ken Richards & Josephine van Zeben (Edward Elgar, forthcoming), (2017)
Sarah E. Light (2017), The Military-Environmental Complex and the Courts, Journal of Land Use and Environmental Law, 32 (2), pp. 455-476.

Teaching

LGST 806 Syllabus (Spring 2019): https://apps.wharton.upenn.edu/syllabi/2019A/LGST806408/

LGST 215/815 Syllabus (Spring 2019): https://apps.wharton.upenn.edu/syllabi/2019A/LGST215401/

Past Courses

LGST215 - ENVT'L MGMT LAW & POL
This course provides an introduction to environmental management by focusing on foundational concepts of environmental law and policy and how they affect business decisions. The primary aim of the course is to give students a deeper practical sense of the important relationship between business and the natural environment, the existing legal and policy framework of environmental protection, and how business managers can think about managing their relationship with both the environment and the law.
LGST806 - NEGOTIATIONS
This course examines the art and science of negotiation, with additional emphasis on conflict resolution. Students will engage in a number of simulated negotiations ranging from simple one-issue transactions to multi-party joint ventures. Through these exercises and associated readings, students explore the basic theoretical models of bargaining and have an opportunity to test and improve their negotiation skills. Cross-listed with MGMT 691/OIDD 691/LGST 806. Format: Lecture, class discussion, simulation/role play, and video demonstrations. Materials: Textbook and course pack.
LGST815 - ENVT'L MGMT LAW & POL
This course provides an introduction to environmental management with a focus on law and policy as a basic framework. The primary aim of the course is to give students a deeper practical sense of the important relationship between business and the natural environment and to think critically about how best to manage this relationship.
MGMT691 - NEGOTIATIONS
This course examines the art and science of negotiation, with additional emphasis on conflict resolution. Students will engage in a number of simulated negotiations ranging from simple one-issue transactions to multi-party joint ventures. Through these exercises and associated readings, students explore the basic theoretical models of bargaining and have an opportunity to test and improve their negotiation skills. Cross-listed with MGMT 691/OIDD 691/LGST 806. Format: Lecture, class discussion, simulation/role play, and video demonstrations. Materials: Textbook and course pack.
OIDD691 - NEGOTIATIONS
This course examines the art and science of negotiation, with additional emphasis on conflict resolution. Students will engage in a number of simulated negotiations ranging from simple one-issue transactions to multi-party joint ventures. Through these exercises and associated readings, students explore the basic theoretical models of bargaining and have an opportunity to test and improve their negotiation skills. Cross-listed with MGMT 691/OIDD 691/LGST 806. Format: Lecture, class discussion, simulation/role play, and video demonstrations. Materials: Textbook and course pack.
PPE 498 - DIRECTED HONORS RESEARCH
Student arranges with a faculty member to do research and write a thesis on a suitable topic. For more information on honors visit: https://ppe.sas.upenn.edu/study/curriculum/honors-theses

Awards and Honors

Wharton Teaching Excellence Award, 2019
Trustees’ Council of Penn Women’s 25th Anniversary Award for Excellence in Advising, 2019
Wharton Teaching Excellence Award, 2018
Winner, Alliance for Research on Corporate Sustainability (ARCS) Emerging Sustainability Scholar Award, 2018 Description
The ARCS Emerging Sustainability Scholar Award recognizes a scholar in the area of corporate sustainability who is likely
to make significant contributions to the advancement of corporate sustainability scholarship. The award will be granted
in recognition of a scholar’s existing body of research and in anticipation of the scholar’s research trajectory. The
selection committee will look for candidates with rigorous and salient contributions that cross disciplinary and national
boundaries.
Honorable Mention, Environmental Law & Policy Annual Review, Precautionary Federalism and the Sharing Economy, 2017 Description
Sarah E. Light, Precautionary Federalism and the Sharing Economy, 66 Emory L.J. 333 (2017) was selected for Honorable Mention by the Environmental Law and Policy Annual Review, a joint publication of the Environmental Law Institute and Vanderbilt Law School. The article was selected as one of the seven “best environmental law or policy ideas” from a pool of “hundreds of law journal articles on environmental topics published between August 2016-and July 2017” by “environmental leaders from the academy as well as the public and private sectors.”
Winning article, Land Use and Environment Law Review, Parallels in Public and Private Environmental Governance, 2017 Description
Annual peer-selected compendium of leading articles in environmental law.
Excellence in Teaching Award in the MBA Program, 2017
Academy of Legal Studies in Business Outstanding Proceedings Paper, for Precautionary Federalism and the Sharing Economy, 2016
People’s Choice Award, Alliance for Research on Corporate Sustainability (ARCS), for Precautionary Federalism and the Sharing Economy, 2016
One of ten faculty nominated by the MBA student body for the Helen Kardon Moss Anvil Award, 2016 Description
The Helen Kardon Moss Anvil Award is awarded annually at Commencement to the one faculty member "who has exemplified outstanding teaching quality during the last year." A list of nominees is generated through a vote by MBA students and nominations from academic departments. The Anvil Award Selection Committee, comprised of student leaders, administrators and past Anvil Award winners, selects the recipient.
Environmental Law and Policy Annual Review, Winning Article, 2015 Description
Sarah E. Light, The Military-Environmental Complex, 55 B.C. L. Rev. 879 (2014) was selected as one of the year’s “best law and policy-relevant ideas on the environment from the legal academic literature,” (one of four winners selected from over 400 articles), with abridged version reprinted in the Environmental Law & Policy Annual Review (2015).
Haub Environmental Law Distinguished Junior Scholar, 2015 Description
The Haub Environmental Law Distinguished Junior Scholar Award is presented annually to an emerging junior environmental law professor who exhibits scholarly excellence and promise at an early stage in his/her career. The Haub School invites the award recipient to present his/her recent scholarship to the Haub community. The Haub Environmental Law Faculty solicits nominations from law professors throughout the country and selects a recipient from that pool of nominations.