Staff

Tom Waldo

"As a young kid, I would walk out my back door into the woods. Playing in those woods was formative, but by the time I was in junior high school all there was back behind our house was this big apartment complex."

Liz Dodd, who has been Tom Waldo's paralegal and friend since he came to the Juneau office in 1989, interviewed Tom for this piece.

Liz: Tom, when did you first decide to become a lawyer?

Tom: I didn't really decide to become a lawyer until after I got a law degree. I backed into this profession from my interest in the environment.

Liz: Ok . . . when did you decide you were interested in the environment?

Tom: Now that's another story altogether. My love for the woods and wild places has been with me pretty much all of my life. I grew up in the suburbs of Minneapolis. But when my parents moved there (the year I was born), it was a new subdivision, out in the middle of nowhere, surrounded by farmland and woods. Over the years growing up I witnessed the open spaces being gobbled up by development. The land filled in with houses and churches and freeways and apartment buildings and an industrial park and malls, until by the time I was in my early teens I found myself in the middle of a heavily developed American suburban landscape. As a young kid, I would walk out my back door into the woods. Playing in those woods was formative, but by the time I was in junior high school all there was back behind our house was this big apartment complex.

About that same time-in my early teens-I started taking summer canoe trips to the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness in northern Minnesota. I loved it, and every summer I'd go on longer and longer trips. The summer before my senior year in high school, we went on a month long trip in northern Ontario and Manitoba. I think the only other people we saw on that trip were in one or two remote Native villages along the way.

I was also the state champion cross-country skier in high school. I couldn't stay away from outdoor sports.

Liz: So then you decided to become an environmental lawyer?

Tom: No way. My skiing ambitions landed me at Dartmouth College. Unfortunately, I succeeded better in the classroom than on the ski trails. I majored in Geography, which appealed to my interest in places and the way people relate to their environments. But it didn't exactly prepare me for a career.

Liz: Well, so you got a Geography degree. Was it then you decided to become a lawyer?

Tom: No, but I was starting to get closer. I took a job as a paralegal in a big old-time Boston law firm. That eventually led me to Stanford Law School.

Liz: So your career was finally launched?

Tom: Well, not without a few more detours. I dropped out of law school after the first year.

Liz: Do you have some kind of attention span disorder?

Tom: Maybe, but that's not why I dropped out. I fell in love.

Liz: Tell me more.

Tom: After that first year of law school, I went to work for the summer at a law firm in Minneapolis. That's where I met Anitra, who was working as a paralegal. She was starting law school at New York University in the fall. Instead of heading back to Stanford, I went the opposite direction and followed Anitra to New York.

Liz: What did you do in New York? Oh, let me guess... you went to work in a...

Tom: ...law firm. Yes, that's right. One of those big Wall Street firms. Richard Nixon used to be a partner there.

Liz: Anything interesting go on there?

Tom: Actually, the firm represented Nintendo against a claim by Universal Studios that Nintendo's video game "Donkey Kong" infringed on the studio's "King Kong" copyright. I guarded a very important piece of physical evidence in the case in my office-the Donkey Kong machine. It's a pure coincidence that I became a Donkey Kong master.

Liz: Sounds like you were finally finding some meaning in life.

Tom: New York was fun for a year, but I sure didn't want to be a Wall Street lawyer. Anitra really helped me get on track. Together we came up with the idea to pursue Fulbright Scholarships and go overseas for a year. Amazingly, it worked. We both won scholarships to Finland, and we got married. I did research on land use law and skied a lot, and we made a lot of friends. When we got back to the states, Anitra transferred to Stanford Law School and I went back there, too, picking up where I'd left off.

Liz: And how did you find law school the second time around?

Tom: For me, the second and third years were a lot more interesting than the first. I was able to take courses in topics that interested me, like environmental law, water law and things of that nature...

Liz: ...so to speak...

Tom: ...I did a one-semester internship at the Natural Resources Defense Council in San Francisco, where I helped with some research on the famous campaign against the pesticide Alar, among other things. I discovered that I enjoyed practicing law when I was engaged in a topic that interested and inspired me.

Liz: Even more than Donkey Kong?

Tom: Don't tell my kids. I was also active in the Stanford Environmental Law Society and served as president for one year. I suppose after that there was no turning back.

Liz: What did you do after law school?

Tom: I was privileged to clerk for a great judge, Jay Rabinowitz, who was Chief Justice of the Alaska Supreme Court. He is probably the most respected jurist in the history of the State of Alaska-on the Court for about thirty years by the time he retired. He was a great inspiration to me. The clerkship also got me to Alaska. My eldest son Lars was born during that time, in 1988.

Liz: But you didn't get here until 1989, as I recall. Where did you go after the clerkship?

Tom: Anitra and I, with baby Lars in tow, returned to our home state of Minnesota. I had accepted a job with the Minnesota Attorney General, where I expected to work in the environmental section. Shortly before we left Fairbanks, I received a letter saying I was being assigned to the public utilities section instead. I wasn't sure I would like that, and I had regrets about leaving Alaska anyway, so I whipped up a resume and spread it around the state before I left. One of the places I sent it was to Lauri Adams, the Managing Attorney of what was then the Sierra Club Legal Defense Fund office here in Juneau. We talked on the phone and she told me there was nothing available, but she'd keep my resume on file if something opened up. So I went to Minnesota and worked for the AG on public utilities-which turned out to be interesting. We were doing a lot of energy conservation work.

Liz: So, how did you end up back here?

Tom: On Good Friday of 1989, the Exxon Valdez hit the rocks and Lauri found herself in need of another attorney. She found my resume gathering dust in her file cabinet, and I got a call from her out of the blue. I ended up accepting what was originally a one-year position to help with the Exxon Valdez crisis, but I've been here ever since. My younger son Nick was born here that first year, in 1990.

Tongass National Forest

Photo by Robert Ketchum

Liz: I know first hand the critical role you've played in saving some of the great places in this state, especially in the Tongass National Forest here in southeast Alaska, where I grew up. If you were to list some of your top accomplishments as a litigator for Alaska's environment over the years, what would they be?

Tom: I never won anything alone. Every single case we've brought has been a team effort that included you and the other lawyers and staff in the Juneau office. Why don't you put some of the cases in a little text box and we can get back to saving Alaska's environment?

Liz: My wish is your command. Thanks for taking time out to explain to our readers how you stumbled into being one of the greatest environmental lawyers around. Your career is surely one of Alaska's happiest accidents.

Tom Waldo is the senior staff attorney in the Juneau office. He graduated from Dartmouth College in 1981 and Stanford Law School in 1987. Tom clerked for Alaska Supreme Court Chief Justice Jay Rabinowitz in 1987-88. From 1988-89, he worked for the Minnesota Attorney General's Office as counsel to Department of Public Service. In 1989, Tom moved back to Alaska to join the Earthjustice team. He develops and litigates a variety of cases in state and federal courts and administrative agencies to protect Alaska's public lands, wildlife, and air and water quality. Cases in his docket include protection of roadless areas and old growth habitat in the Tongass and Chugach National Forests, prevention of illegal disposals of state public domain lands, and protection of water bodies from acid mine drainage and other mining-related water pollution. Clients include local and national environmental groups, tribal governments, tourism businesses, commercial and sport fishing organizations, and municipal governments.

Created: January 3, 2006