Joshua McClain
“I am excited to be a part of the Texas Law community because I believe the law is critical to understanding and addressing inequities. I am particularly interested in disparities in access to a safe and healthy environment. As a state on the front lines of both creating and responding to climate catastrophes, Texas is a powerful place to pursue an education on that topic. As summers get hotter, water gets scarcer, hurricanes become more unpredictable, and industrial pollution concerns continue unabated, Texas is grappling with climate-driven environmental challenges every year. I can think of no better place, and no better group of peers and teachers, to help me learn how the law can be used to support communities in becoming more whole, resilient, and equitable.”
Josh McClain is a member of the Justice Center's student advisory board and is on the executive boards of the Environmental Law Society and the GRITS Conference. He is a member of the Public Interest Law Association and Law Students for Black Lives. Josh has participated in the Environmental Clinic, worked as a Teaching Quizmaster for the 1L writing program, and served as a teaching assistant for Civil Procedure. He currently works as a research assistant focused on toxics law and prison environmental conditions and will be a teaching assistant for constitutional law in the spring of 2025.
The summer after his 1L year, Josh worked with Texas RioGrande Legal Aid's Community Development and Environmental Justice Teams in Edinburg, Texas. The summer after his 2L year, he worked with the Southern Environmental Law Center in its Chapel Hill, North Carolina office, focusing on water contamination issues.
Josh graduated from Kenyon College in 2019 with a degree in political science and is pursuing dual JD/Master of Public Affairs degrees from Texas Law and the LBJ School of Public Affairs. At the LBJ School, which he attended for a year before starting law school, Josh worked at the newly launched Prison and Jail Innovation Lab, researching conditions of confinement and correctional oversight. Currently, he is part of a capstone project at the LBJ School focused on extreme weather adaptation in Austin.
Immediately before moving to Austin for graduate school, Josh worked as a paralegal for Legal Aid of North Carolina's Disaster Relief Project in Durham, North Carolina, helping clients across the eastern half of North Carolina navigate the long-term hurricane recovery process.