ANDREW WELLE

Andrew joined Our Children’s Trust in 2017 and now supervises staff attorneys and leads cases, serving as counsel of record and advising on numerous youth-led constitutional climate cases in state and federal courts. 

Andrew is lead counsel in Natalie v. State of Utah, the first constitutional climate case to assert direct violations of the right to life, and the first based directly on an originalist method of constitutional interpretation.  He is also lead counsel in Sagoonick v. State of Alaska II, the first constitutional climate case challenging a fossil fuel mega-project. Andrew also led the previous Alaska youth-led constitutional climate case, Sagoonick v. State of Alaska I, in which two Alaska Supreme Court Justices recognized that Alaska’s Constitution protects a fundamental right to a livable climate. He served as co-counsel in Aji P. v. Washington and serves as counsel of record in Layla H. v. Commonwealth of Virginia. Andrew has argued before numerous state appellate courts, and, in Our Children’s Trust’s federal litigation, has authored successful briefs in the federal district court, the Ninth Circuit, and the United States Supreme Court. In a long-standing partnership of over five years, Andrew leads a section of Yale Law School’s Environmental Protection Clinic, designing curricula and projects, and overseeing students’ work to advance Our Children’s Trust case development. 

He was a post-graduate fellow at the Environmental and Natural Resource Center at the University of Oregon School of Law, where his scholarship focused on the intersection of free trade agreements, environmental sovereignty, and the Public Trust Doctrine. He worked with Blue River Law on Endangered Species Act, National Environmental Policy Act, Clean Water Act, and FOIA suits. Following law school, Andrew was an associate at Barnes & Thornburg LLP. He received his JD from the University of Oregon School of Law and BA from Indiana University.