There is an interesting debate that has recently begun about renaming the term “environmental law” to something like “resource law” based on the simple fact that there are lawyers out there who practice environmental law that are in no way actively working to protect the environment. There is no such confusion with the attorneys that work for Eartjustice. The whole raison d’etre for this non-profit organization is to work on behalf of the earth for the benefit of ours and future generations. Recently I spoke to Earthjustice associate attorney Neil Gormley about Earthjustice and practicing environmental law in an age where the difference between how the environment is viewed on Capitol Hill and on Main Street are seemingly growing increasingly disconnected.
Earthjustice is a non-profit environmental law organization with roots that go back to 1965 and the Sierra Club’s battle to protect Mineral King, a valley in California’s Sierra Nevada’s mountains from the developers at Walt Disney, who wanted to build a massive ski resort complex with all the negative environmental consequences such a development can cause. While the Walt Disney company actually won the Mineral King case after it wound its way to the Unites States Supreme Court in 1972, an opinion in the majority decision that a private citizen could be irreparably harmed by the development. This was the springboard that the Sierra Club attorneys used to set the precedent that a private citizen could sue a developer for environmental damage, a decision that their follow up court victory confirmed in allowing the public’s right to fight for the environment in court. Formally split off into the Sierra Club Legal Defense Fund in 1971, the mission of these attorneys has remained the same:
