BIO
Thomas McHenry served as Dean and President of Vermont Law School from 2017 to 2021 where he directed a variety of initiatives that have made Vermont Law School financially stronger and enhanced its educational programs. He is Chair of the Leadership Council of the Yale School of the Environment and he serves as vice-chair of the advisory council of the Roberts Environmental Center at Claremont McKenna College. He previously worked as an attorney in Los Angeles for over thirty years, the last twenty as a partner at Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher where he practiced general environmental law. McHenry also served as an Adjunct Visiting Professor at Claremont McKenna College in Claremont, California for more than twenty-five years where he taught environmental law and policy and environmental leadership.
McHenry also served as a law clerk to the Honorable Lawrence Karlton, Chief United States District Judge of the Eastern District of California in Sacramento, California and as a research fellow in the National Park Department of Taiwan in 1983-1984. He has advised more than fifteen countries on wildlife, national parks and forestry legislation as a consultant to the United Nations and World Bank. He currently serves on the boards of the Center for Large Landscape Conservation and the National Forest Foundation. He holds a JD from New York University Law School and a Master of Forest Science degree from the Yale School of the Environment (formerly the School of Forestry and Environmental Studies) and a Bachelor of Arts Degree in history from Yale College.