Career Highlights

• Working with the Peninsula Open Space trust  to preserve Coyote Valley, a critical wildlife linkage between the Santa Cruz and Diablo mountain ranges.  
• Representing more than a dozen land trusts to protect thousands of acres of open space, agricultural land, and habitat. 
• Drafting mandatory recycling and composting ordinances as well as a county wide plastic bag ban for StopWaste.org. 
• Representing the East Bay Regional Park District in litigation that validated the District’s authority to independently manage its resources on park property (Save Lafayette Trees v. East Bay Regional Park District (2021) 66 Cal.App.5th 2) and representing the Park District in state and federal litigation so the District can effectively manage wildfire risk within its parks. 
• Convincing the appellate court that the consideration of alternatives in an EIR for a subdivision near the base of Mount Whitney violated CEQA (Save Round Valley Alliance v. County of Inyo (2007) 157 Cal. App. 4th 1437). 

Community Service, Publications, and Recognitions

• California Lawyer of the Year (CLAY) Award in environmental law: 2020.
• Served on the Land Trust Alliance Conservation Defense Advisory Council.
• Chairs the Conservation Law Forum for the California Council of Land Trusts.

Bar Memberships

Member of the Bar of the State of California, Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, and several federal district courts.

Education

Yale Law School, JD, 1989

UC Berkeley, BS, 1984

About Me

When I’m not working, I’m bicycling and hiking in Sonoma County, tending to our chickens and ducks, playing the cello, creating new recipes, and travelling to exotic and not-so-exotic places.