Tony Derron

Associate Professor

401 UCB
2450 Kittredge Loop Drive
Wolf Law Building
Boulder, CO  80309
E-mail: Tony.Derron@colorado.edu

Bio:
An Associate Professor of Law, Tony Derron is an environmental law scholar who examines how administration, government structure, and property rules affect environmental outcomes. Professor Derron's scholarship explores the many pathways of environmental law, from federal regulation to state constitutions, and draws on historical and current environmental practices to inform solutions to problems both inside and outside the field. He teaches Advanced Administrative Law, Civil Procedure, and Energy Law.

His recent scholarship, Unwritten Administrative Law and the Regulatory Law Mile, in the University of Pennsylvania Law Review identifies a structural flaw in cooperative federalism. Through a comprehensive fifty-state survey, Professor Derron finds that state administrative law is undeveloped across the states, even though federal programs like the Clean Water Act rely on state administrative law to function.

Prior to joining the faculty, Professor Derron taught at the University of Chicago Law School as a Bigelow Fellow. Before that, he served at the Colorado Attorney General's Office, spearheading its multistate environmental efforts as well as representing state agencies in litigation and rulemakings. Immediately after law school, Professor Derron clerked for Chief Judge Brimmer on the United States District Court for the District of Colorado and Justice Hood on the Colorado Supreme Court. He received his J.D. from Yale Law School and a B.S. in Business & Political Economy from NYU Stern School of Business. An avid rock climber, you will likely find Professor Derron adventuring on the Flatirons and other geological playgrounds outside of work.

Articles

Unwritten Administrative Law and the Regulatory Last Mile in Cooperative Federalism, 173 U. Pa. L. Rev. (forthcoming June 2025).
Trespass Plus: Ag-Gag and the Right to Exclude, 35 Geo. Env't L. Rev. 1 (2022).

Courses:

Fall 2025 Civil Procedure LAWS 5303-803



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With our roots in Colorado and a global outlook, we are ...

a supportive and diverse educational and scholarly community in a place that inspires vigorous pursuit of ideas, critical analysis, contemplation, and civic engagement to advance knowledge about the law in an open, just society.


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To be an outstanding public law school that: provides students with a state-of-the-art legal education and prepares them to serve wisely and with professionalism; advances the development of knowledge through scholarship, testing of new ideas, and challenges to the status quo; and serves as a vehicle and catalyst for meaningful public service, all of which deliver high value to our students and have positive impacts?both locally and globally?on the legal profession and society.