Aden Choate and Leah Dory Named 2026 David Harrison Innovations in Water and Energy Law & Policy Fellows
University of Colorado Law School students Aden Choate ('28) and Leah Dory ('28) are this year’s David Harrison Innovations in Water and Energy Law & Policy Fellows. The Fellowship, initiated in 2010 by partners of the law firm of Moses, Wittemyer, Harrison and Woodruff, P.C. in honor David L. Harrison (Law ‘71), is awarded each year to a Colorado Law student on the basis of academic performance, commitment to public service, and interest in the study of water and energy law and policy. This year, for the first time, we are thrilled to support two Harrison Fellows.
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Aden Choate is a first-year law student from Charleston, IL, with a keen interest in environmental governance and water law. She earned a Bachelor of Science in Foreign Service from Georgetown University’s Walsh School of Foreign Service in 2021, where she majored in Culture & Politics with a focus on political ecology in the Andean region. While studying abroad in Ecuador, she first encountered rights-of-nature frameworks, which the country codified in its 2008 constitution to grant legal rights to natural bodies. Before law school, Aden worked for three years as a journalist, most recently as a staff reporter in Provincetown, MA, covering local government. Her reporting on water-related conflicts sparked her interest in water law and its role in community governance. Through the Harrison Fellowship, she looks forward to advancing her understanding of rights-of-nature frameworks and comparative water law, and to building a foundation to further explore their applications for water security in the United States.
Leah Dory is a first-year law student interested in water law and policy. Inspired by growing up on a farm in Colorado, interning with a U.S. senator, and studying water policy in China, Leah is interested in the ways law shapes our relationship to water, land, and one another.ÌýThrough the Harrison Fellowship, Leah seeks to engage more deeply at the intersection of law and environmental systems while learning new ways to advance the sustainable management of water. Leah is a Student Deputy Director of the Acequia Assistance Project, the incoming Vice President of NALSA, and ELS Bar Association LiaisonÌýand Coordinator for the CU Undergraduate Colorado Water Fellows. When not reading for class, Leah climbs rocks, makes stained glass art, and plays in the snow.Ìý