In His Element Battling for the Environment

By Laura Shin

For environmental lawyer Joel Kupferman, his profession is also his passion.

“One of the reasons I got into environmental law is that my father worked in the Brooklyn Navy Yard during World War II and he ended up getting cancer from asbestos exposure,” said Kupferman, 56, executive director and senior attorney for The New York Environmental Law and Justice Project

His father’s experience, coupled with his strong social justice conscience, drove Kupferman to study environmental law at Touro Law School and establish the project soon after graduating.

The group, established in 1991, is a nonprofit public interest organization in Manhattan that counsels and represents groups and individuals concerned with the preservation and improvement of community environmental conditions.

One of its main principles is the idea that disadvantaged and vulnerable people often have fewer amenities, less parks and increased exposure to toxins, Kupferman said.

“These are the people who need help the most, and most lawyers neglect them because they can’t make money off the cases,” he said.

The project believes money shouldn’t be an issue and justice must be served. Kupferman said the project takes a “public law approach,” trying to prevent ills from happening and using the organization’s connections to government.

A major problem Kupferman worked on was the environmental fallout from 9/11. The project collected samples from the site and uncovered documents that revealed that the health risks for those exposed in the area were greater than officials had initially made it seem.

The project’s findings invoked significant changes, including cleanup of the area and a lawsuit.

This year, in Hell’s Kitchen, Kupferman worked with parents of students at P.S. 51 after the discovery of the presence of toxic chemicals in the building.

Kupferman is currently representing residents of the St. Nicholas Houses in Harlem to stop the construction of a new charter school that would tear down 100 trees where a park currently is.

“We want to preserve public space as much as possible,” he said.

Kupferman, who grew up in Lower Manhattan and Long Island, now lives on the Upper West Side.

In addition to his work with the Environmental Law and Justice Project, Kupferman is co-chair of the Environmental Justice Committee of the National Lawyers Guild.

He describes himself as an “urban outdoors person” and said he enjoys riding the subway to explore the city, taking it from Far Rockaway to the foothills of the Bronx.

As far as future plans go, one goal for Kupferman is to ensure that those studying environmental justice law can sustain themselves after they get out of law school by setting up sustainable organizations to fight on behalf of the community.