Richard Wallsgrove '08

Richard Wallsgrove is an Assistant Professor working with the Environmental Law Program. Prior to joining the William S. Richardson School of Law, he served as the Policy Director for the Blue Planet Foundation. During his time spearheading the nonprofit's clean energy advocacy, key successes included:  working to pass the nation's first 100% renewable portfolio standard; advocating to halt the expansion of the state's last coal generating station; co-founding the Drive Electric Hawaii partnership; and creating the annual Hawaii Energy Report Card. He has also worked with the Center for Island Climate Adaptation & Policy to analyze climate change adaptation tools for managing water resources in the Pacific. His prior legal practice focused on complex commercial litigation and transactions.  

As a student, Richard was co-Editor-in-Chief of the University of Hawaii (UH) Law Review. While at UH, he performed field and laboratory research on the use of stable isotopes to measure biochemical markers of climate change (MS, chemical oceanography). Before UH, Richard worked as a high school science teacher, among other endeavors. At the University of California at Berkeley, he studied chemistry (BS).

Richard was born in England and grew up around the world, including time in Saudi Arabia, Czechoslovakia, Brazil, and across the U.S. His full-time role is as a dad. But Richard also volunteers as the President of the Board of Directors for the SEEQS Foundation, in support of the School for Examining Essential Questions of Sustainability, a public charter school in Honolulu. In 2014, he was selected as one of the Pacific Business News "Forty Under 40" business and community leaders. He has called Hawai'i home since 2002.  

Teaching areas: Environmental Law, Lawyering Fundamentals, Business Associations and Energy Law

• Richard Wallsgrove, Jisuk Woo, Jae-Hyup Lee & Lorraine Akiba, The Emerging Potential of Microgrids in the Transition to 100% Renewable Energy Systems, 14 Energies 1687 (2021) Energies l ScholarSpace

• Richard Wallsgrove & Katherine Hughes, Survey of 100% Renewable Energy Standards in the United States, Climate Disruption and Decarbonization Conference, American Bar Association Section on Environment, Energy, and Resources (Feb. 19, 2020)  ABA Link
• Is Community Solar Really a Security?, 43 Vermont L. Rev. 777 (2019). HeinOnline | SSRN | ScholarSpace
• Water Resources in American Samoa:  Law and Policy Opportunities for Climate Adaptation (Pacific Regional Sciences and Assessments Program, East-West Center, Honolulu, Hawai‘i, 2016) (with Z. Grecni)  East-West Center | ScholarSpace

• What Can the Abolition of Slavery Teach Us About Climate Change? Local Action in the Liquefied Natural Gas Controversy, 33 U. Haw. L. Rev. 687 (2013) HeinOnline | ScholarSpace
• Water Resources and Climate Change Adaptation in Hawai‘i: Adaptive Tools in the Current Law and Policy Framework (Center for Island Climate Adaptation and Policy, Honolulu, Hawai‘i, 2012) (with D. Penn) Pacific RISA | ScholarSpace
• Chief Justice Moon’s Criminal Past, 33 U. Haw. L. Rev. 755 (2011) (with K. Nichols) HeinOnline | ScholarSpace
• Digital Island: A Case Study (Pacific Asian Center for Entrepreneurship, Honolulu, Hawai‘i) (2009) (with W. Richardson et al.) 
• Approaching Offshore Wave Power Generation in Hawai‘i: Integrating the Regulatory Scheme with Native Hawaiian Stewardship (2007) (selected for deposit in the U. Haw. Native Hawaiian Law Collection) 
• Note, More than a Line in the Sand: Defining the Shoreline in Hawai‘i After Diamond v. State, 29 U. Haw. L. Rev. 521 (2007) (with S. Vance) HeinOnline | ScholarSpace
• Seasonal patterns of alkenone production in the subtropical oligotrophic North Pacific, 21 Paleoceanography 1165 (2006) (with B. Popp et al.) AGU | ScholarSpace
• A new method for estimating growth rates of alkenone-producing haptophytes, 4 Limnology and Oceanography: Methods 114 (2006) (with B. Popp et. al) ASLO | ScholarSpace