Field Attorney, Grand Canyon Trust

Colorado Plateau

Position Title: Field Attorney

Organization: Grand Canyon Trust

Location: Colorado Plateau

Organization Overview: Since 1985, the Grand Canyon Trust has been a leading voice in regional conservation on the Colorado Plateau. The Trust works tirelessly to protect the Colorado Plateau’s remarkable landscapes, while respecting the rights of its Native peoples. They are a non-profit conservation organization dedicated to ensuring the region’s public lands, native species, communities, and cultures thrive. Learn more here.

Position Overview: The field attorney’s work is at the heart of the legal program’s docket outside the courtroom. If you’re hired, you’ll elevate the legal ground game. You’ll survey the wild places you’re fighting for. You’ll navigate through tamarisk and government-agency offices, from Ogden to Kanab, and Flagstaff to Moab. You’ll learn from Native leaders. You’ll study the plans and projects that may harm the places we advocate for. And you’ll put all those elements together to write comments on those proposals, to represent the Grand Canyon Trust in administrative proceedings, to drop pithy quotes for the papers, and to otherwise press our case for the Colorado Plateau.

On the org chart, you’ll report to the most senior staff attorney, but you’ll work closely with both of the Denver-based staff attorneys, the program staff, and the communications team. Your docket will cover a wide range of issues affecting the plateau, from defending national monuments to wrangling with livestock grazing, uranium mining and milling, pinyon and juniper removal, recreation-driven challenges, and land-management-plan revisions.

Responsibilities:

  • Spearhead the work monitoring and analyzing proposed land-management plans and projects in southern Utah and northern Arizona and draft comments on those they classify as a priority
  • Develop strong relationships with colleagues, land managers, Native government officials and community leaders, conservation partners, local officials, and others to push forward the Trust’s strategic goals.
  • Collaborate with the staff attorneys to identify and prioritize high-leverage administrative appeal and litigation opportunities.
  • Represent the Trust in appeals before the Interior Board of Land Appeals and in the Forest Service environmental appeals process.
  • Assist staff attorneys with litigation in the state and federal courts, depending on your interests and our needs.
  • Assist program staff with communicating about our work and talk to the media as needed.

Minimum Qualifications:

  • You think through legal problems sedulously and write about them clearly.
  • You have at least four years’ experience working on legal matters involving public lands; tribal lands; or environmental, energy, natural resources, or equivalent subjects.
  • You have a solid understanding of administrative law and of federal public-lands or environmental law.
  • You can work well with people whose perspectives and backgrounds differ, colleagues and non-colleagues alike.
  • You’re willing to travel, averaging somewhere around 5–7 days a month out of the office, with fluctuation around that mean.
  • You’re admitted to and in good standing with a state bar and willing to become a member of the bar where you live.
  • You demonstrate a commitment to justice, equity, diversity, and inclusion and the ability to integrate these commitments into your work.

Desired Qualifications:

  • Experience working with Native governments and Native communities.
  • Familiarity with federal Indian law or relevant tribal law.
  • Familiarity with Colorado Plateau wildlands, ecology, or politics.

Salary/pay: $72,000–$90,000, commensurate with experience and qualifications, The Trust provides individual health and dental insurance, generous vacation and sick leave, paid holidays, disability, 401(k) retirement benefits, professional development funds, and paid parental leave.

COVID-19: COVID vaccination is required for this position. If you are in need of a reasonable accommodation, contact: kdudine@grandcanyontrust.org.

How to Apply: The Trust has retained the services of ThinkingAhead Executive Search. Please submit your résumé and expression of interest to: Jessica Martinez at jmartinez@thinkingahead.com.

 

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