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Law at the Frontlines: Rethinking Legal Frameworks in an Era of Climate Risk
As wildfire risk intensifies across California and beyond, the legal questions surrounding prevention, response, and recovery are becoming even more urgent.
This year’s Law Review Symposium, “Stages of Fire: Mitigation, Adaptation, and Rebuilding,” convened leading voices from law, policy, and land management to explore how legal systems are responding to the increasing scale and complexity of the issue.
Hosted by the USF Law Review and Symposium Editor Flannery Kelleher ’26, the program followed the lifecycle of wildfire disaster, tracing the legal implications from prevention through long-term recovery.
Panels on mitigation explored the tools available to reduce fire risk before catastrophe strikes: land-use regulation, forest management policy, utility liability, and the role of government oversight. Speakers underscored a sobering reality: many of the legal frameworks governing wildfire risk were built for a different climate era.
The conversation shifted to adaptation, focusing on what it means to live and govern in places where wildfire threat is constant. Panelists examined insurance market instability, zoning and development reform, climate modeling, and the uneven burden wildfire places on rural and vulnerable communities. Adaptation, the discussion made clear, isn’t just environmental policy — it’s housing, infrastructure, and economic survival.
In the rebuilding sessions, the focus turned to recovery: who gets to return, who gets left out, and what legal systems shape those outcomes. Topics included disaster aid, housing displacement, infrastructure finance, and the opportunity and responsibility to rebuild communities in ways that are more resilient and more equitable than before.
The address from Dr. David Saah, Professor and Director of USF’s Geospatial Analysis Lab, pushed the conversation even further. Offering a big-picture view of climate governance and land management, Dr. Saah challenged the legal profession to move beyond reactive frameworks and help design systems capable of anticipating environmental disruption at scale. The message was clear: the law can’t afford to operate one disaster behind reality.
