Lee '76 Named a CA Attorney of the Year for Environmental Law
Clifford T. Lee '76 was awarded a 2007 California Attorney of the Year Award by the editors of California Lawyer for his contributions in the field of environmental law.
The Attorneys of the Year Awards recognize attorneys around the state whose achievements have made a profound impact in 2006 or whose work from December 2005 to December 2006 is expected to have such an effect in the coming years. The awards identify 28 achievements in 17 areas of legal practice that reflect the breadth and depth of the work performed by California lawyers.
This year, California Lawyer honored 43 attorneys for their extraordinary achievements. These attorneys changed the law, substantially influenced public policy or the profession, or achieved a remarkable victory for a client or for the public.
Lee, a deputy attorney general in the Office of the California Attorney General in San Francisco, was instrumental in persuading the Third District Court of Appeal last year to uphold major elements of the state's water-quality program for the Sacramento—San Joaquin Delta. The hugely complex decision helped resolve eight separate appeals, and three cross-appeals, in seven cases brought in the aftermath of a 1995 water-quality control plan and a water-rights decision it implemented five years later.
Although the appeal court sided with environmentalist critics and Delta farmers on some aspects of the plan—opening the possibility that more water could be released into the San Joaquin River at various times of the year-the panel largely sided with the state's actions. Lee claims a victory of about 90 percent.
Justice Ronald B. Robie, who wrote the decision, summed up the magnitude of the issues at stake: "The history of California is written on its waters—from the Eel River, to the Salton Sea, to the Colorado River, to Lake Tahoe. But no area has been more critical than the Sacramento and San Joaquin rivers and their great delta and San Francisco Bay estuary." (State Water Res. Control Bd. Cases, 136 Cal. App. 4th 674 (2006).)
Lee is also an adjunct professor at UC Hastings College of the Law. From 1977 through 1979 Mr. Lee was a staff attorney with the Governor's Commission to Review California Water Rights Law. Since December 1979, he has been a deputy attorney general with the Natural Resources Law Section of the California Department of Justice. He has represented the State Water Resources Control Board, the Department of Water Resources, the Air Resources Board, the Department of Fish and Game, the Department of Forestry and Fire Protection, the Board of Forestry, and other state agencies in litigation in state and federal courts.
Lee has been a member of the Hastings College of the Law adjunct faculty since 1995.
California Lawyer/March 2007
The Attorneys of the Year Awards recognize attorneys around the state whose achievements have made a profound impact in 2006 or whose work from December 2005 to December 2006 is expected to have such an effect in the coming years. The awards identify 28 achievements in 17 areas of legal practice that reflect the breadth and depth of the work performed by California lawyers.
This year, California Lawyer honored 43 attorneys for their extraordinary achievements. These attorneys changed the law, substantially influenced public policy or the profession, or achieved a remarkable victory for a client or for the public.
Lee, a deputy attorney general in the Office of the California Attorney General in San Francisco, was instrumental in persuading the Third District Court of Appeal last year to uphold major elements of the state's water-quality program for the Sacramento—San Joaquin Delta. The hugely complex decision helped resolve eight separate appeals, and three cross-appeals, in seven cases brought in the aftermath of a 1995 water-quality control plan and a water-rights decision it implemented five years later.
Although the appeal court sided with environmentalist critics and Delta farmers on some aspects of the plan—opening the possibility that more water could be released into the San Joaquin River at various times of the year-the panel largely sided with the state's actions. Lee claims a victory of about 90 percent.
Justice Ronald B. Robie, who wrote the decision, summed up the magnitude of the issues at stake: "The history of California is written on its waters—from the Eel River, to the Salton Sea, to the Colorado River, to Lake Tahoe. But no area has been more critical than the Sacramento and San Joaquin rivers and their great delta and San Francisco Bay estuary." (State Water Res. Control Bd. Cases, 136 Cal. App. 4th 674 (2006).)
Lee is also an adjunct professor at UC Hastings College of the Law. From 1977 through 1979 Mr. Lee was a staff attorney with the Governor's Commission to Review California Water Rights Law. Since December 1979, he has been a deputy attorney general with the Natural Resources Law Section of the California Department of Justice. He has represented the State Water Resources Control Board, the Department of Water Resources, the Air Resources Board, the Department of Fish and Game, the Department of Forestry and Fire Protection, the Board of Forestry, and other state agencies in litigation in state and federal courts.
Lee has been a member of the Hastings College of the Law adjunct faculty since 1995.
California Lawyer/March 2007