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Thomas Hicks - University of San Francisco '05
Tom Hicks is a California water law, real property, and conservation attorney who represents public interest organizations, landowners, and others on public policy, transactional, and select administrative and litigation matters. Before law school, Tom was an energy and water policy analyst at the Natural Heritage Institute and the founder and Executive Director of the Headwaters Institute. He has interned at the San Francisco Office of the City Attorney, California State Water Resources Control Board, and American Rivers. Tom founded and chaired the inaugural California Water Law Symposium sponsored by leading northern California law schools and is a Board Member. He is the author of the Water Education Foundation Layperson's Guide to Water Rights Law, recognized as the most thorough explanation of California water rights law available to non-lawyers. Tom is a former whitewater raft guide, kayaker, and Colorado Outward Bound instructor. He holds a JD from the University of San Francisco School of Law and a BA from the University of Vermont. |
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Steve Westhoff - UC Davis '13
Steve Westhoff is an attorney-advisor for the United States Department of Energy's Loan Programs Office. He previously served in the California State Water Resources Control Board’s Office of Chief Counsel, where he advised and worked on matters including underground storage tank regulation, various financial assistance programs, water rights regulation, and state water quality certification of federally permitted or licensed projects. He graduated from the University of California, Davis, School of Law in 2013 with a J.D. and Environmental Law, Pro Bono, and Public Interest Law certificates. During law school, he interned at numerous state agencies, served as a research assistant to Professor Richard Frank, was an active member of the Environmental Law Society, and was an editor of Environs. He was also a student co-chair of the Water Law Symposium in 2013. Before law school, during the Great Recession, Steve worked as a cashier for Berkeley Bowl Marketplace and volunteered for non-profit organizations and a Bay Area high school junior varsity lacrosse team. Steve graduated from the University of California, Berkeley, in 2008 with a B.A. in Rhetoric and a B.S. in Conservation and Resource Studies. |
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Nell Green Nylen - UC Berkeley '12
Nell Green Nylen is a Senior Research Fellow with the Wheeler Water Institute in the Center for Law, Energy & the Environment (CLEE) at Berkeley Law. Her research engages law, science, and policy to tackle critical California water issues. Nell clerked for Justice Gregory J. Hobbs of the Colorado Supreme Court. She earned a J.D. from Berkeley Law, where she was a symposium co-chair for the 2012 California Water Law Symposium and interned at the California Attorney General’s Office and the Center for Biological Diversity. Before law school, Nell worked at the California Academy of Sciences, the Yale Peabody Museum of Natural History, Stanford University, and the U.S. Geological Survey. She earned a Ph.D. in Geological and Environmental Sciences from Stanford, where her dissertation research examined past climatic and environmental change along the Northern California coast. |
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Vincent Vu - UC College of the Law, San Francisco '15
Vincent Vu is an attorney with the Office of Chief Counsel for the California State Water Resources Control Board. He provides advice and counsel to regional water quality control boards. Previously, Vincent was an attorney at a municipal law firm and a criminal prosecutor with the Los Angeles City Attorney’s Office. Vincent attended the University of California, College of the Law, San Francisco where he served as the Editor-in-Chief of the Hastings West-Northwest Journal of Environmental Law and Policy (currently, the Hastings Environmental Law Journal). During law school, Vincent externed as a law clerk for the Honorable Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers, United States District Court for the Northern District of California; Shute, Mihaly & Weinberger LLP; the Natural Resources Defense Council; the California Attorney General’s Office Natural Resources Section; and the California Coastal Commission. He received his B.A. in Psychology and Social Behavior, with a minor in Political Science, from the University of California, Irvine. He served as Co-Chair for the 2014 California Water Law Symposium. |
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Anthony Austin - Golden Gate University '11
Anthony Austin is a Staff Counsel in the Office of Chief Counsel for the State Water Resources Control Board. He provides advice and counsel on various financial assistance programs, including loan and grant funding for construction of water recycling facilities, watershed protection projects, nonpoint source pollution control projects, stormwater projects, and other water quality projects. Prior to joining the State Water Board, Anthony served as a Deputy Attorney General with the California Attorney General’s Office where he represented the Department of Toxic Substances Control in various cost recovery, hazardous waste enforcement, and bankruptcy matters. He also worked to stop several of the U.S. Department of Energy’s rulemaking efforts aimed at weakening energy efficiency standards. Anthony has also served as an attorney with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, carrying out Superfund enforcement actions and working to develop USEPA’s national cleanup enforcement policies. From 2012-2013, Anthony clerked for Judge Diana Terry on the Colorado Court of Appeals. He has a bachelor’s degree from the University of California, San Diego, a J.D. from Golden Gate University School of Law, and an LL.M. in Environmental and Natural Resources Law and Policy from the University of Denver, Sturm College of Law. During law school, Anthony served as a panel co-chair for the 2010 California Water Law Symposium and then as the Symposium Chair of the 2011 California Water Law Symposium. |
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Lauren Marshall - UC College of the Law, San Francisco '19
Lauren Marshall is an attorney with the State Water Resources Control Board, Office of Chief Counsel where she advises the Division of Financial Assistance on issues related to the Safe and Affordable Drinking Water Fund, Technical Assistance, and the Drinking Water State Revolving Fund. She previously served as a graduate legal assistant for the State Personnel Board. As a law student, she was an intern for the California Coastal Commission, Gross & Klein, and the Center for Biological Diversity. She graduated from UC College of the Law, San Francisco in 2019. Lauren earned a Bachelor’s degree in Environmental Management and Protection from California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo. She served as Co-Chair for the 2019 California Water Law Symposium. |
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Jessica Jandura - Golden Gate University '20
Jessica Jandura is an associate at Davis Wright Tremaine LLP in their San Francisco office. As a member of the Technology, Communications, Privacy & Security practice group, she supports advocacy efforts primarily in front of California regulatory agencies on issues related to the communications, energy, water, and transportation industries. She joined Davis Wright Tremaine after serving as a judicial clerk at the California Public Utilities Commission. Jessica graduated from Golden Gate University School of Law summa cum laude with specialization certificates in Environmental Law and Public Interest Law. In addition to the Commission, during law school she interned with the Sierra Club and Golden Gate University School of Law’s Environmental Law & Justice Clinic. Prior to law school Jessica earned a Masters Degree in Human Rights from the University of York with a concentration on sustainable development and community-based adaptation to climate change. She also has Bachelors Degrees in Political Science and International Studies from Loyola University Chicago. Jessica served as a GGU panel co-chair for the 2019 California Water Law Symposium and then as a Symposium co-chair in 2020. |
Thank You to Our Participating Schools
For more information on sponsorship opportunities, contact waterlawsymposium@gmail.com
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