ASU Law announces Richard Morrison Professorship in Water Law

Rhett Larson, a professor at the Sandra Day O'Connor College of Law, at the Rio Salado Habitat Restoration Area in Phoenix. Photo by Deanna Dent/ASU Now

By Nicole Almond Anderson |
December 09, 2019

At the Sandra Day O’Connor College of Law at Arizona State University, students learn from some of the nation’s foremost scholars and innovative legal instructors. They have played an integral role in ASU Law establishing itself as one of the highest-ranked public law schools in the nation, a leading center of scholarly exchange with a tradition of exceptional bar-passage and quality job-placement rates.

Among the notable faculty members is Rhett Larson, a professor who was recently named the Richard Morrison Professorship in Water Law.

Richard Morrison is co-founder of the Morrison Institute for Public Policy at Arizona State University, taught water resources management at ASU in the Morrison School for Agribusiness, where he was faculty member for the school’s water resources management professional development program, and taught agricultural law at ASU Law as an adjunct professor.

Larson’s research and teaching interests are in property law, administrative law, and environmental and natural resource law, in particular, domestic and international water law and policy.

“Richard Morrison has been my friend and mentor since I was a young water lawyer,” Larson said. “He’s also been a leader in Arizona water policy. It’s an honor to hold a position that bears his name.”

Larson graduated from the University of Chicago Law School and received his Master of Science in Water Science, Policy and Management from Oxford University, where he was a Weidenfeld Scholar. Larson’s research focuses on the impact of technological innovation on water rights regimes, and on the sustainability implications of a human right to water. He is a senior research fellow with the Kyl Center for Water Policy, where he works on dispute resolution and improved processes in water rights adjudications in Arizona and the Colorado River Basin. Larson was a visiting professor and Fulbright Scholar at the Pontifical Catholic University of Ecuador and works in the Middle East on water security issues.