This is a list of notable environmental lawyers.
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Name | Lifespan | Nationality | Significance |
---|---|---|---|
Bruce Babbitt | June 27, 1938 | American | Babbitt was United States Secretary of the Interior, Governor of Arizona, and Attorney General of Arizona. [1] |
Nannette Jolivette Brown | 1963–present | American | Brown is the current Judge of the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Louisiana. [2] |
Bradley M. Campbell | 1961–present | American | Campbell was the Regional Administrator of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's Middle Atlantic Region. [3] |
Alexandra Dunn | Dunn is a law professor. She was formerly Executive Director and General Counsel of the Environmental Council of the States (ECOS), [4] | ||
David Fleischaker | 1944–present | American | Fleischaker served as the Oklahoma Secretary of Energy from 2003 to 2008. [5] |
Dario Hunter | 1983–present | American | Hunter is the first Muslim-born person to be ordained a rabbi. [6] |
Janet Keeping | 1971–present | Canadian | Lecturer in the Faculty of Law at University of Calgary, Director of Russian Program for Canadian Institute of Resources Law, Honorary Professor of Law at Tyumen State University in Russia, awarded Medal of Service by the Academic Council of Tomsk State University in Russia, Leader of the Green Party of Alberta. [7] |
Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. | January 17, 1954 | American | Kennedy is president of Waterkeeper Alliance. He is also an attorney and environmental activist. He is a son of Robert F. Kennedy and nephew of former President John F. Kennedy. [8] |
Peter Lehner | 1958–present | American | Lehner is a lawyer and environmentalist. He is currently the executive director of Natural Resources Defense Council [9] |
Eva Ligeti | Canadian | Ligeti served as Ontario's first Environmental Commissioner from 1994 to 1999. [10] | |
Harvey Locke | Canadian | Founder of Yellowstone to Yukon Conservation Initiative, served as advisor to various nature conservation organizations, sits on the World Commission on Protected Areas. | |
Mahesh Chandra Mehta | Indian | Mehta is known for his continuous fights in Indian courts against pollution-causing industries. He received the Goldman Environmental Prize in 1996. [11] | |
Miles Tolbert | American | Tolbert served as Oklahoma Secretary of the Environment from January 2003 to August 2008. [12] | |
John Roche | September 26, 1949 | American | Roche was a professional basketball player in the NBA and a lawyer. [13] |
Andrew Sacks | American | Sacks is an attorney and managing partner of the Philadelphia law firm Sacks Weston Millstein Diamond, LLC. [14] | |
Pallavoor Sahasranaman | Indian | Sahasranaman has served as Amicus Curiae and Advocate Commissioner at the High Court of the Indian State of Kerala. [15] | |
Dianne Saxe | Canadian | ||
Yvonne Scannell | She is a professor of Environmental Law at Law School in Ireland. [16] | ||
David Sive | September 22, 1922 – March 12, 2014 | American | Sive is a pioneer in environmental law. [17] |
James Gustave Speth | March 4, 1942 – present | American | Speth is known for his environment work in tasks forces and committees. He is a professor at Vermont Law School. [18] |
Paul Stein | January 4, 1939 – June 22, 2024 | Australian | Stein was a lawyer and judge. He is known for his contributions to environmental and planning law. [19] [20] |
Jon Wellinghoff | May 30, 1949 | American | Wellinghoff served as the chairman of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) from 2009 to 2013. [21] |
The Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) is a United States-based 501(c)(3) non-profit international environmental advocacy group, with its headquarters in New York City and offices in Washington D.C., San Francisco, Los Angeles, Chicago, Bozeman, India, and Beijing. The group was founded in 1970 in opposition to a hydro-electric power power plant in New York.
In the United Kingdom and some Commonwealth realms, a King's Counsel is a lawyer appointed by the state as a senior advocate or barrister with a high degree of skill and experience in the law. When the reigning monarch is a woman, the title is Queen's Counsel (QC).
The Federalist Society for Law and Public Policy Studies (FedSoc) is an American conservative and libertarian legal organization that advocates for a textualist and originalist interpretation of the U.S. Constitution. Headquartered in Washington, D.C., it has chapters at more than 200 law schools and features student, lawyer, and faculty divisions; the lawyers division comprises more than 70,000 practicing attorneys in ninety cities. Through speaking events, lectures, and other activities, it provides a forum for legal experts of opposing conservative views to interact with members of the legal profession, the judiciary, and the legal academy. It is one of the most influential legal organizations in the United States.
David Hackett Souter is an American lawyer and jurist who served as an associate justice of the U.S. Supreme Court from 1990 until his retirement in 2009. Appointed by President George H. W. Bush to fill the seat that had been vacated by William J. Brennan Jr., Souter sat on both the Rehnquist and the Roberts courts.
The University of Connecticut School of Law is the law school associated with the University of Connecticut and located in Hartford, Connecticut. It is the only public law school in Connecticut and one of only four in New England. As of 2020, it enrolled 488 students.
Omar Ahmed Said Khadr is a Canadian who, at the age of 15, was detained by the United States at Guantanamo Bay for ten years, during which he pleaded guilty to the murder of U.S. Army Sergeant 1st Class Christopher Speer and other charges. He later appealed his conviction, claiming that he falsely pleaded guilty so that he could return to Canada where he remained in custody for three additional years. Khadr sued the Canadian government for infringing his rights under the Charter of Rights and Freedoms; this lawsuit was settled in 2017 with a CA$10.5 million payment and an apology by the federal government.
Neal Kumar Katyal is an American appellate lawyer and professor of law. He is a partner at the Hogan Lovells law firm and is the Paul and Patricia Saunders Professor of National Security Law at Georgetown University Law Center. During the Obama administration, Katyal served as Acting Solicitor General of the United States from May 2010 until June 2011. Previously, Katyal served as a lawyer in the Solicitor General's office and as Principal Deputy Solicitor General in the United States Department of Justice.
Gerald Phillip Garson was an American lawyer and New York Supreme Court Justice who heard matrimonial divorce and child custody cases in Brooklyn. He was convicted in 2007 of accepting bribes to manipulate the outcomes of divorce proceedings. Garson was imprisoned from June 2007 until December 2009.
Thomas Ancil Balmer is a former justice and chief justice of the Oregon Supreme Court. A native of Washington, he was appointed to the court in 2001 as a justice, later serving as chief justice from 2012 to 2018. He retired on December 31, 2022.
John E. Simonett was an attorney and associate justice of the Minnesota Supreme Court. He was famous for his wit and thoughtfulness, characteristics reflected both in his judicial opinions, and in his writings and speeches. In 2007, he was named one of the 100 most influential attorneys in Minnesota history. Of his six daughters and sons, two became judges, one serving as the fourth Chief Judge of the Minnesota Court of Appeals from 1994 to 1995.
Deborah Tobias Poritz is an American jurist. She was the Chief Justice of the New Jersey Supreme Court from 1996 to 2006, and was the Attorney General of New Jersey from 1994 to 1996, in both cases becoming the first woman to serve in that position.
President Barack Obama made two successful appointments to the Supreme Court of the United States. The first was Judge Sonia Sotomayor to fill the vacancy created by the retirement of Justice David H. Souter. Sotomayor was confirmed by the United States Senate on August 6, 2009, by a vote of 68–31. The second appointment was that of Solicitor General Elena Kagan to replace the retired John Paul Stevens. Kagan was confirmed by the Senate on August 5, 2010, by a vote of 63–37.
Jayne Margaret Jagot is a justice of the High Court of Australia, the highest court in the Australian judicial system. She was appointed to the High Court in October 2022. Jagot was previously a judge of the Federal Court of Australia. Before that, she served as a judge of the Land and Environment Court of New South Wales and a partner at the law firm Mallesons Stephen Jaques.
Matt Huffman is an American politician serving as a member of the Ohio Senate, representing the 12th district since 2017, while concurrently serving as the Ohio Senate President as a Republican. The district includes Allen, Champaign, Mercer and Shelby counties, as well as parts of Auglaize, Darke and Logan counties.
James Thornton is an environmental lawyer and writer. He was the founding CEO of ClientEarth, a global non-profit environmental law organisation before moving into the non-executive role of President and Founder. Born in New York, he is also an Irish citizen.
Paul Leon Stein was an Australian lawyer and judge, and an authority on environmental law.
Patrick James Morrisey is an American politician and attorney serving as the 34th Attorney General of West Virginia since 2013. A member of the Republican Party, he was elected to the position in 2012, becoming the first Republican to serve in the role since 1933. Running for the United States Senate in 2018, Morrisey won the Republican Party nomination, but was narrowly defeated by incumbent Democratic Senator Joe Manchin in the November general election. He is his party's nominee in the 2024 West Virginia gubernatorial election.
United States energy law is a function of the federal government, states, and local governments. At the federal level, it is regulated extensively through the United States Department of Energy. Every state, the federal government, and the District of Columbia collect some motor vehicle excise taxes. Specifically, these are excise taxes on gasoline, diesel fuel, and gasohol. While many western states rely a great deal on severance taxes on oil, gas, and mineral production for revenue, most states get a relatively small amount of their revenue from such sources.
Patrick F. Fischer is a justice of the Ohio Supreme Court. He was first elected in 2016 and subsequently re-elected in 2022.