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Lawrence Kahn is an attorney, entrepreneur and educator who has provided advisory services in the environmental and maritime “trees and seas” space for over 25 years. He is a Distinguished Research Fellow with the Tulane Center for Environmental Law.
Mr. Kahn previously worked for the U.S. Army, where he was certified as a Contracting Officer’s Representative and negotiated and enforced government contracts and had oversight of the hazard tree removal program, management of Army timber, flora and fauna resources, protection of Army air, water and land resources, and development of environmental remediation projects and hazard tree programs for the (then) Division of Land Management.
Following law school, Mr. Kahn served as Staff Attorney for the Seamen’s Church Institute’s Center for Seafarers’ Rights before going into private practice, joining the New York-based Freehill Hogan & Mahar, where he became partner in 2007. In 2013, Kahn left the firm to pursue entrepreneurial opportunities, including both a tree company and a recycling company. Kahn served as an officer, director, and general counsel and brought the recycling company international renown when he led the successful effort to have it become the first non-EU company qualified under the EU’s Ship Recycling Regulations.
Kahn developed (and currently serves as Director of) the Tulane Utility Vegetation Management Initiative, a joint project of Tulane Law School’s Center for Environmental Law and Tulane Law School’s Center for Energy Law. Through that initiative, he is involved in training a select group of Tulane Law School students in utility vegetation management law, practice and procedure and developed with those students the first comprehensive study of all UVM laws throughout North America.
He is a graduate of Columbia University with a B.A. in ancient studies. He received his J.D. from Tulane Law School in 1995. He has advised numerous companies and appeared as an expert on CNN World News, NBC’s Dateline, and other television news programs, as well as in a variety of trade publications, including Tradewinds, Lloyd’s List, and The Journal of Commerce. He was a featured speaker on recycling at the Tradewinds Conference held at Singapore in January 2017, and was a featured speaker on safe and green recycling at Ethical Corporation’s Responsible Business Summit in 2018. He was a member of the faculty of the Admiralty Law Institute at its biennial meeting in March 2020 and the paper he delivered there has been published in the Tulane Maritime Law Journal.
“Environmental Litigation Challenges in the UVM Context”, Panel Moderator, Tulane Energy & Environmental Law Society Summit 2020 (Mar. 2022),
“An Introduction to the Tulane UVM Initiative and Findings of our First Annual Report on UVM Regulation”, Presentation to International Society of Arboriculture Annual Meeting, Dallas, Texas (Dec. 2021)
“Fire, Ice, Floods and Storms: The New Tulane Utility Vegetation Management Initiative”, Tulane Distinguished Speakers CLE Program, New Orleans, Louisiana (Nov. 2021)
“Decarbonizing the Maritime Industry Through Better – and Appropriately Incentivized – Vessel Recycling”, Presentation at Glasgow City College in Association with COP26 Conference, Glasgow, Scotland (Nov. 2021)
“Tulane’s Utility Vegetation Management Initiative”, The UVM Podcast, interview by Nick Ferguson and Steve Cieslewicz (Oct. 2021)
“Understanding and Improving the UVM Regulatory Environment and an Update on the Collaboration Between the Tulane UVM Initiative and Arbor Day Foundation”, Presentation to Trees & Utilities Conference, Minneapolis, Minnesota (Oct. 2021)
“Larry Kahn Speaks Out on Scrapping in the USA, and Much, Much More”, Steel Plate – The Podcast for Ship and Rig Recycling, interview by Jon Chaplin (Aug. 2021)
“An Introduction to the Tulane UVM Initiative and Understanding the Regulatory Environment Applicable to Municipal Utilities”, Presentation to California Municipal Utilities Association, Sacramento, California (Aug. 2021)
“Understanding the Scope of North American UVM Regulations Outside of California and Lessons Learned for California Regulators”, Presentation to California Public Utility Commission and California Office of Energy Infrastructure Safety / Wildfire Safety Division, Sacramento, California (Aug. 2021)
“Understanding the UVM Regulatory Environment both Inside and Outside California to Enhance Protections Against Wildfires and Improve Electric Reliability”, Presentation to California Investor-Owned Utilities and Municipal Utilities, Sacramento, California (Aug. 2021)
“Preliminary Findings of the Tulane Utility Vegetation Management Initiative’s Investigation of North American UVM Laws, Regulations and Ordinances”, Keynote Address at Integrated Vegetation Managers Association Spring Meeting, Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada (Mar. 2021)
“Preliminary Findings of the Tulane Utility Vegetation Management Initiative’s Investigation of North American UVM Laws, Regulations and Ordinances”, Keynote Address at Professional Vegetation Managers Association Spring Meeting, Edmonton, Alberta, Canada (Mar. 2021)
"Everything American Maritime Attorneys Need to Know About Ship Recycling…But Were Afraid to Ask”, 45 Tul. Mar. L.J. 1 (Winter 2020)
“Proposal for Leveling the Playing Field in Ship Recycling”, White Paper presented to European Commission Directorate-General for the Environment, Division of Waste Management and Recycling (Jun. 2016)
"Jolly Roger with an Uzi: The Rise and Threat of Modern Piracy", Jack A. Gottschalk, Brian P. Flanagan, Lawrence J. Kahn and Dennis M. Larochelle (2000)
“Pirates, Rovers, and Thieves: New Problems with an Old Enemy,” 20 Tul. Mar. L.J. 293 (1996)
“Sunken Treasures: Conflicts Between Historic Preservation Law and the Maritime Law of Finds,” 7 Tul. Envtl. L.J. 595 (1994), cited in Reeder, John, Brice on Maritime Law of Salvage, 5th Ed. at 316 (2011)