Professor of Law and Judge Raymond J. Dearie Scholar
Steve Gold
Rutgers Law School
477
S.I. Newhouse Center for Law and Justice
123 Washington Street
Newark, NJ 07102
973-353-3177

Steve C. Gold is an environmental lawyer with extensive litigation experience. He focuses his scholarship on toxic torts and hazardous substance regulation and cleanup. Before joining the law school, he was senior attorney in the Environmental Enforcement Section of the U.S. Department of Justice. A former articles editor of the Yale Law Journal, he clerked for U.S. District Judge Raymond J. Dearie of New York after graduating from Yale Law School.

  • Biography
  • Publications
  • Courses Taught
  • Expertise
Biography

Professor Gold earned an A.B. cum laude in biology from Harvard College and a J.D. from Yale Law School, where he was an articles editor of the Yale Law Journal and a supervising student in the clinical program. After law school he clerked for U.S. District Judge Raymond J. Dearie, Eastern District of New York. In 1989 he joined the Environment & Natural Resources Division of the U.S. Department of Justice in Washington, DC. He held the position of senior attorney, Environmental Enforcement Section, before joining the law school in 2007.

Professor Gold teaches Environmental Law, Administrative Law, Torts, and Toxic and Environmental Torts. His scholarship focuses on toxic torts and hazardous substance regulation and cleanup. Recently he has explored the potential of genomics to help resolve claims that toxic exposures caused illness. Professor Gold’s work has appeared in the Harvard Environmental Law Review, the Washington & Lee Law Review, and the Encyclopedia of Toxicology. It has been cited by numerous federal, state, and foreign courts, including the U.S. Courts of Appeals for the Third, Fifth, Seventh, Eighth and Ninth Circuits, the supreme courts of New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and Texas, the supreme courts of the United Kingdom and Israel, and the trial division of the Supreme Court of Queensland, Australia.

In his work at the Department of Justice, Professor Gold's major cases included trials, appeals and settlements under several federal environmental statutes, including: the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation and Liability Act (Superfund site cleanups); the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (hazardous waste regulation); the Clean Air Act (air pollution regulation); the Emergency Planning and Community Right-to-Know Act (toxic release reporting); and the National Environmental Policy Act (environmental impact assessment). The Department of Justice and the Environmental Protection Agency recognized his work with numerous awards.

Publications

"Reference Guide on Epidemiology," (with Michael D. Green, Jonathan Chevrier and Brenda Eskenazi), in Reference Manual on Scientific Evidence, 4th edition ch. 12, National Academies of Science, Engineering, and Medicine / Federal Judicial Center (forthcoming 2024)

"Regulating Chemicals -- Learning from PFAS" (with Wendy E. Wagner), Natural Resources & Environment (forthcoming 2024)

“Toxic Torts” (with Green, M.D.) in Encyclopedia of Toxicology (Wexler, P., ed.), 4th edition vol. 9, pp. 217-242, Elsevier Inc., Academic Press (2024) (DOI: 10.1016/B978-0-12-824315-2.00836-8)

"Q&A with Prof. Steve Gold," One Earth (Cell Press) (5 One Earth 1093, Oct. 21, 2022) (https://www.cell.com/one-earth/pdf/S2590-3322(22)00492-4.pdf)

"Obstacles to Toxic Chemical Research" (with Wendy E. Wagner), Science (375 Science 138, January 14, 2022) (DOI: 10.1126/science.abl4383)

"Filling Gaps in Science Exposes Gaps in Chemical Regulation" (with Wendy E. Wagner), Science (368 Science 1066, June 5, 2020) (available at http://science.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/368/6495/1066?ijkey=i8HTR4C/CzYcw&keytype=ref&siteid=sci )

"Changing the Focus of Scientific Uncertainty," in Concilier la Securite des Produits et la Responsabilite Civile dans l'Ere du Risque et de l'Incertitude [Reconciling Product Safety and Civil Liability in an Era of Risk and Uncertainty] (Lara Khoury & Marie-Eve Arbour eds.), Editions Yvon Blais (Montreal), Thomson-Reuters (2019)

Teacher's Manual for A Practical Introduction to Environmental Law (with Joel A. Mintz, John C. Dernbach, Kalyani Robbins, Clifford Villa, and Wendy E. Wagner), Carolina Academic Press (2017)

A Practical Introduction to Environmental Law (with Joel A. Mintz, John C. Dernbach, Kalyani Robbins, Clifford Villa, and Wendy E. Wagner), Carolina Academic Press (2017)

“Epidemiologic Evidence in Toxic Torts” (with Green, M.D. and Sanders, J.) in Forensic Epidemiology: Principles & Practice (Michael Freeman & Maurice Zeegers, eds.), Elsevier Inc., Academic Press (2016)

Scientific Evidence of Factual Causation: An Educational Module (with Green, Michael D. and Sanders, Joseph), Committee on Preparing the Next Generation of Policy Makers for Science-Based Decisions, National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, Medicine (Oct. 2016)

“Drywall Mud and Muddy Doctrine: How Not to Decide a Multiple-Exposure Mesothelioma Case,” Indiana Law Review (49 Ind. L. Rev. 117, 2015)

“Toxic Torts” (with Green, M.D.) in Encyclopedia of Toxicology (Wexler, P., ed.), 3rd edition vol. 4, Elsevier Inc., Academic Press (2014) 

“A Fitting Vision of Science for the Courtroom,” Wake Forest Journal of Law & Policy (3 Wake Forest J.L. & Pol’y 1, 2013)

“When Certainty Dissolves Into Probability: A Legal Vision of Toxic Causation for the Post-Genomic Era,” Washington & Lee Law Review (70 Wash. & Lee L. Rev. 237, 2013)

“Revisiting Relative Risk Rules: Garza, Blanchard, and the Ever Evolving Role of Epidemiologic Proof in Toxic Tort Cases” (PDF), BNA Product Safety & Liability Reporter, 40 PSLR 50, 1/9/12

“The ‘Reshapement’ of the False Negative Asymmetry in Toxic Tort Causation,” William Mitchell Law Review (37 Wm. Mitchell L. Rev. 1507, 2011) 

“The More We Know, the Less Intelligent We Are? — How Genomic Information Should, and Should Not, Change Toxic Tort Causation Doctrine” in the Harvard Environmental Law Review (34 Harv. Envtl.L. Rev. 369, 2010) (This article was listed in the January 2011 Defense Counsel Journal’s “Reviewing the Law Reviews” article presenting “a selective bibliography of current law review literature thought to be of interest to civil defense counsel.”)

“Dis-Jointed? Several Approaches to Divisibility After Burlington Northern” in the Vermont Journal of Environmental Law (11 Vt. J. Envtl. L. 307, 2009)

Courses Taught
  • ADMINISTRATIVE LAW
  • ADVANCED TORTS
  • ENVIRONMENTAL LAW
  • TORTS
  • TOXIC & ENV TORTS
Expertise
  • Administrative Law
  • Environmental Law
  • Products Liability
  • Science (Law &)
  • Statutory Interpretation and Legislation
  • Torts