Staff

Glenn Sugameli

"Environmental lawyers can only be effective when ordinary people both directly contact decision-makers and join together to support groups like Earthjustice and the clients we represent."

My work as an environmental advocate is rooted in my upbringing. When our family visited special places, from our nation's forests to the Alps to the Caribbean, I saw the beauty of, and threats to, our natural world. My parents taught me to help other people, to conserve our natural world, and to give something back. My wife nurtures these values in me, and our daughter and son each affirm them through their vast curiosity and enormous sense of fairness.

Earthjustice attorney Glenn Sugameli with his wife Theresa, daughter Eileen, and son Kevin

I first appreciated the need for personal and collective action and advocacy when I was in high school. I joined national environmental groups, wrote about pollution in my Carle Place (NY) High School newspaper, and helped start the school's ecology club. I co-founded the 33-member Nassau Environmental Coalition of Secondary Schools, which successfully pushed for recycling pick-ups and filled two buses for an overnight trip to lobby the state legislature for a bill to allow (I am not making this up) citizen environmental lawsuits. At Princeton University, I also advocated for people -- I co-founded Princeton Hunger Action and began many years as a volunteer Bread for the World activist.

Here I am at the time (1981) and place (Great Falls on the Potomac) of my engagement to Theresa

I went to University of Virginia School of Law to save the world -- or at least try to make it a better place. My service on the Virginia Law Review included a (alas, unpublished) Note on standing to bring environmental lawsuits.

I began my career as a lawyer in 1979 representing Indian tribes and Alaska Native groups. I was particularly pleased to play a key role in securing major victories for the Salish & Kootenai Tribes of the Flathead Reservation that also benefited the environment. These included a federal appeals court ruling on the Tribes' right to prevent pollution of Flathead Lake, and a Federal Energy Regulatory Commission decision that actually rejected a proposed dam -- and saved Kootenai Falls.

My parents (Anthony and Vera), Theresa, Eileen and Kevin

From 1987 through 2001, as a National Wildlife Federation counsel and senior counsel in Washington, D.C., my advocacy and litigation included challenging countless national coal mining rules and defending many others against industry attacks. I also led the public interest community's successful opposition to Trojan Horse attacks on a wide variety of environmental and other safeguards that proceeded under the guise of preventing constitutional "takings" of private property. My work included guiding coalition, media, educational, and grassroots opposition to national and state takings bills and helping to deflect many state, federal, and Supreme Court takings challenges. I was able to become a leading national authority on takings, and have published a string of book chapters and law review and other articles.

In 2001, I joined Earthjustice to start the Judging the Environment project, which recognizes just how much environmental safeguards depend upon fair and impartial federal judges. Since then, we have had considerable success in our twin goals of raising the profile of environmental issues in the selection of lifetime federal judges and in helping to block nominees with the most egregious anti-environmental records.

Lawyers play an essential role in helping to conserve the environment. We can only be effective, however, when ordinary people both directly contact decision-makers and join together to support groups like Earthjustice and the clients we represent.

Glenn Sugameli is a Senior Legislative Counsel in Earthjustice's Policy and Legislative program in Washington, D.C., where he heads our Judging the Environment project, which works with Community Rights Counsel and others on federal judicial selection. He received his A.B. degree cum laude from Princeton University in 1976, and his law degree in 1979 from the University of Virginia School of Law, where he served on the Virginia Law Review. Glenn's legal career has embraced litigation, with over three dozen reported decisions, and policy, including grassroots, media, coalition, and direct work on energy policy, property rights/takings, and other issues. His publications include chapters in three American Bar Association books, two books that are "popular" in terms of content, if not necessarily sales, and numerous law review and other articles. Glenn and his wife, Theresa, live in Arlington, Virginia with their daughter Eileen, who loves acting (and turtles), and their son Kevin, who is determined to discover everything about the natural world.

Created: January 3, 2006