Biography

Kamaile Turčan (née Nichols) joined the William S. Richardson School of Law in 2023 as an Associate Professor of Law and teaches Civil Procedure and Administrative Law, among other courses in support of the Environmental Law Program curriculum. She is an alumna of Richardson, where she served as co-Editor-in-Chief of the University of Hawai‘i Law Review and earned an Environmental Law Certificate.  

Prior to joining the faculty at Richardson, Professor Turčan was a partner at Jones Day in Washington DC, where she maintained an appellate advocacy and complex civil litigation practice. She has also served in government at both the state and federal levels. Professor Turčan was an Attorney Advisor in the Office of General Counsel, National Oceanic & Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), where she provided legal advice to agency clients on the application of federal law to the management of fishery resources and protected species within the Western and Central Pacific Region. At the state level, she was the second Marine Law Fellow hired under the Environmental Law Program’s fellowship program to the Department of Land and Natural Resources, Division of Aquatic Resources (DAR). She previously clerked for Associate Justice Sonia Sotomayor of the Supreme Court of the United States, Judge Richard Clifton of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, and Judge David Ezra of the U.S. District Court for the District of Hawai‘i.

Professor Turčan’s scholarly research interests fall at the intersection of administrative law, environmental law, land use policy, federalism, and the courts, with a focus on fundamental questions of governance and decision making. Her scholarship has appeared in the Minnesota Law Review, Villanova Law Review, University of Hawai‘i Law Review, Fordham Environmental Law Review, William & Mary Environmental Law & Policy Review, Notre Dame Journal of Ethics & Public Policy, and UCLA Journal of Environmental Law and Policy. 

Publications

• Kamaile A.N. Turčan, The Bogeyman of Environmental Regulation:  Federalism, Agency Preemption, and the Roberts Court, 109 Minn. L. Rev. (forthcoming 2025)
• Kamaile A.N. Turčan, Rethinking Aquaculture Regulation in a Post-Chevron World, 36 Fordham Envtl. L. Rev. (forthcoming 2025)
• Kamaile A.N. Turčan, “Major Questions” About Preemption, 69 Vill. L. Rev. 737 (2024). ScholarSpace
• Kamaile A.N. Turčan, U.S. Property Law: A Revised View, 45 Wm. & Mary Envtl. L & Pol’y Rev. 319 (2021). ScholarSpace
• Kamaile A.N. Turčan, Fisheries Management in American Samoa and the Expanding Application of Parens Patriae Standing to Challenge Federal Administrative Action, 33 Notre Dame J.L. Ethics & Pub. Pol’y 1 (2019). ScholarSpace
• Kamaile A. Nichols & Richard J. Wallsgrove, Chief Justice Moon’s Criminal Past, 33 U. Haw. L. Rev. 755 (2011). ScholarSpace
• Calvert G. Chipchase, Christian K. Adams & Kamaile A. Nichols, A State-by-State Survey of Public Use Standards, in Eminent Domain: A Handbook of Condemnation Law 153 (William Scheiderich et al. eds., 2011)
• Kamaile A. Nichols, Turtles and Tourism: Where the Endangered Species Act Ends and Community Activism Begins, 25 UCLA J. Envtl. L. & Pol’y 411 (2007). ScholarSpace
• Kimberly K. Asano & Kamaile A. Nichols, Note, Center for Bio-Ethical Reform, Inc. v. City & County of Honolulu: Demonstrating the Need to Abandon the Field Preemption Doctrine, 29 U. Haw. L. Rev. 501 (2007). ScholarSpace