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500Lawdragon Q & A with:Victor SherMany laWYers enter the legal profession“to make a difference,” as is Victor Sher’s explanationfor his decision to attend law school. But few lawyerscan claim to have made such a massive impact throughlitigation, particularly in the area of environmental law.Sher of Sher Leff has devoted his life to protectingthe environment, unafraid of taking on large corporationsand governmental agencies. He practiced atEarthjustice (previously known as the Sierra Club LegalDefense Fund) for more than a decade and served asits president from 1994 to 1997, where he litigatedand managed a staggering array of cases and campaigns.In private practice, he has focused his work onwater contamination cases. Sher won a $104.7M verdictin 2009 for the City of New York against ExxonMobil for contamination by MTBE.LAWDRAGon: When and why did you decide you wantedto devote your legal career to environmental law, asopposed to another type of practice?vICTor SHER: I went to law school to make a difference,and started out working on a variety of publicinterest issues. I handled several pro bono cases in myfirst few years of practice involving civil rights, fairhousing and police misconduct. Then, in 1984, I representeda family farm in northern California that facedlosing its organic certification - the foundation of theirbusiness - because the State of California intended tospray every apple, crabapple, and hawthorn tree or bushin six counties with a derivative of German nerve gas. Ofcourse, there was an equally effective non-chemicalalternative. The case had everything that appealed tome: interesting legal and factual questions, challengingscientific issues, David v. Goliath, lots of media attentionand high drama. We got an injunction literally asthe spray trucks were about to roll. I was hooked.LD: How did you come to get the job at Earthjustice?And what about the job kept you there for more than adecade?VS: I originally volunteered to handle some overflowenvironmental cases out of the San Francisco office,while the organization was still known as the SierraClub Legal Defense Fund (although it was always independentfrom the Sierra Club). One of these cases ledto an injunction that preserved thousands of acres ofopen space on the coast from development; the propertylater became a state park. I got to know some of thesenior management in San Francisco from working onthis and other cases. In 1986, the organization decid-bY John rYaned to open a new office in Seattle. I applied for andgot the job as managing attorney. Then, following RickSutherland’s untimely death in 1991 and an interregnumperiod, in 1993 I was drafted to become Presidentand moved back to San Francisco. In mid-1997 Iresigned to move into private practice.I spent seven years in Seattle litigating cases forclean water, clean air, and to preserve the ancient forestsof the Pacific Northwest, among other cases.These were complex, high-profile cases, and they wereexciting and satisfying to litigate. As President of theorganization from 1993 to 1997, I was the CEO of a50-lawyer law firm with 10 offices around the country -the largest public interest environmental law firm inthe world. I worked to increase our effectiveness bypromoting proactive litigation campaigns (rather thanjust individual cases) and expanding our capacity to beeffective political advocates in support of litigation.During my watch, we also adopted the Earthjusticename. The challenges of building an institution andrunning an organization were new to me and quite differentfrom litigating cases. But ultimately I missedthe courtroom and left to do environmental tort cases.LD: Obviously, there were many cases you worked on atthe organization, as you just discussed. Nevertheless,is there a case or type of litigation you handled thatyou think really stands out in terms of the legacy youleft for the organization, a particular region or theenvironment generally?VS: Probably the best known of my Earthjustice caseswere the multiple series of lawsuits my colleagues and Ibrought over the northern spotted owl, which was a keyindicator species for the health of the ancient forests ofthe Pacific Northwest. These cases exposed what onecourt called a remarkable series of violations of the federalenvironmental laws by the federal agencies chargedwith protecting these lands and species, and led to aseries of injunctions issued by multiple courts underseveral laws that changed logging practices on millionsof acres. The American Lawyer called these casesamong the most significant public lands cases in thenation’s history, and they led to a wholesale revision ofthe way the U.S. Forest Service and the Bureau of LandManagement manage biodiversity on federal lands.I found litigating these cases fascinating bothbecause of the important legal and biological issues,and also because they played out on multiple legal andpolitical levels. See the full Q&A at www.lawdragon.com/lawyer-limelights/victor-sher.L A W D R A G O N 162 I s s u e 13 Photo by: Gregory Cowley