Joseph Dellapenna

Joseph William Dellapenna (born December 28, 1942) is a Professor of Law at Villanova University School of Law. He was born in Detroit.

Professor Dellapenna holds a B.B.A. with distinction earned at the University of Michigan in 1965, a J.D. cum laude from the Detroit College of Law earned in 1968, an LL.M. in Public International & Comparative Law from George Washington University completed in 1969 and an LL.M. in environmental law from Columbia University completed in 1974. Dellapenna has been admitted to practice as an attorney in Michigan and also for cases before the United States Supreme Court.

Before joining the Villanova faculty in 1976, he was an Assistant Professor of Law at Willamette University College of Law and an Associate Professor of Law at the University of Cincinnati. He has also held senior Fulbright lectureships at National Chengchi University in the Republic of China (Taiwan) (1978–79) and at Jilin University in the People's Republic of China (1987–88), and was a Fulbright senior researcher with the Directory General of Natural Resources of the Republic of Portugal (1990), as well as visiting professor at Detroit College of Law, Widener University, and the Ohio State University. He is a regular visiting lecturer at the University of Macau and holds a three-year appointment as an Adjunct Professor of Law at the University of South Australia.

Dellapenna is best known for his work on water law, ranging from the local to the national to the international levels. In addition to teaching a course of his own design on Managing the Water Environment, he has served as a consultant to governments on three continents regarding water law reform and on transboundary water disputes. He has also taught related courses on Environmental Law, International Trade and the Environment, Natural Resources Law, and Ocean and Coastal Law. He represented the Connecticut Water Works Association in City of Waterbury v. Town of Washington, 260 Conn. 506, 802 A.2d 1102 (2002), persuading the Connecticut Supreme Court to adopt a significant reinterpretation of Connecticut water law. He is also a major contributor to Waters and Water Rights (LexisNexis: Newark, NJ, multiple ed., various dates) the standard treatise of the topic, being responsible nearly the whole of volumes 1 and 3 and parts of volumes 2, 5, and 6, of the eight volume treatise. He has also written articles and books on water law, most notably "The Importance of Getting Names Right: The Myth of Markets for Water," William & Mary Environmental Law and Policy Review, vol. 2:317-77 (2000).

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