Mark Davis is a Senior Research Fellow at Tulane University Law School, and the Director of
the Institute on Water Resources Law and Policy at the Law School, whose mission is to foster
an appreciation of the importance of water resources and the vital roles that law and policy play
in their management and stewardship.
Mr. Davis has taught as an adjunct faculty member at the Indiana University School of Business
(Indianapolis), IIT Chicago-Kent School of Law, and Loyola Law School (New Orleans). He is
currently an adjunct instructor at the Tulane University Law School. Prior to coming to Tulane
Law, Mr. Davis served for fourteen years as Executive Director of the Coalition to Restore
Coastal Louisiana, a broad-based charitable organization committed to the stewardship of
Louisiana's coast.
Mr. Davis sits on a number of boards and commissions including America's Wetland Foundation
Board of Directors; Gulf Restoration Network Advisory Board; Coalition to Restore Coastal
Louisiana Advisory Board; Governor's Advisory Commission on Coastal Restoration and
Conservation, Legal and Land Rights Committee; LSU Sea Grant Legal Program Advisory
Board; and Louisiana State University School of the Coast and Environment Advisory
Committee.
Mr. Davis has a BS and a JD from Indiana University, and an MLT from Georgetown
University. He is a member of the bar in Indiana, the District of Columbia, Illinois, and
Louisiana. He lives in New Orleans.
Lisa J. Laplante obtained her law degree from New York University School of Law, where she
was a Root-Tilden-Kern merit scholar. She participated in Peru's political transition in various
capacities for six years, beginning as a researcher with the Truth and Reconciliation Commission
as a grantee of the Notre Dame University Transitional Justice Program. She co-founded and
is the Deputy Director of Praxis Institute for Social Justice, and was invited for the 2007–08
academic year to be a member of the School of Social Science at the Institute for Advanced
Study at Princeton.
Since 2008, Ms. Laplante has been a Visiting Assistant Professor of Law at Marquette Law
School. In addition to numerous book chapters and peer reviewed articles, her scholarship has
also appeared in the Virginia Journal of International Law, Yale Human Rights & Development
Law Journal, Michigan Journal of International Law, and the American University International
Law Review.
Professor Patrick McGinley is a graduate of Dickinson College and the Duke University School
of Law where he was a member of the Duke Law Journal Editorial Board. Professor McGinley
served as a law clerk to a Justice of the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania and as a Special
Assistant Attorney General, Commonwealth of Pennsylvania Environmental Strike Force. In the
latter position he was engaged in environmental enforcement and mine safety litigation.
In 1975 Professor McGinley joined the West Virginia University College of Law faculty where
he has taught courses in contracts, civil procedure, criminal, environmental, administrative, land
use, and natural resources, constitutional law, and appellate advocacy as well as seminars in
public access to information, environmental justice and U.S. Supreme Court litigation.
Professor McGinley was co-editor of the multi-volume treatise Coal Law & Regulation and of
the Annual Proceedings of the Eastern Mineral Law Foundation. He was a founder and served as
an officer and trustee of the Eastern Mineral law Foundation (now the Energy and Mineral Law
Foundation). He has published numerous law review articles relating to environmental, natural
resources, access to public information and administrative law. His most recent scholarship,
Climate Change and Coal: Exploring the Dark Side, appears in Climate Change: A Reader
(Carolina Academic Press, 2009).
Professor McGinley has served as Chair, American Law Institute – American Bar Association
Course of Study: Legal Issues in the Coal Industry; Co-Chair, American Law Institute –
American Bar Association Course of Study: Legal Issues in the Eastern Coal Industry, (First
continuing legal education program broadcasting nation-wide to remote city locations; Chair,
Eastern Mineral Law Foundation, Oil and Gas Special Institute; Program Chair, WVU College
of Law: A Discussion of Public Corruption; Chair, American Association of Law Schools
Annual Meeting, Section of Environmental Law, Environmental Justice in the Classroom and
Courtroom; Co-Chair, Environmental JusticeRacism Workshop, Society of American Law
Teachers Annual Meeting (University of Minnesota School of Law); Member of the Board
of Directors; and as a consultant to the West Virginia Water Resources Board and the West
Virginia Sago Mine Disaster Investigation.
Professor McGinley's work has been recognized by the Environmental Policy Institute for
his "tireless efforts to promote and uphold the rights of the land, the people of America's
coalfields and the law protecting them." (1987); by the Directors of the 16th Annual Public
Interest Environmental Law Conference Cary Rydberg Award (University of Oregon, Eugene,
Oregon) for "Outstanding Contributions to Public Interest Advocacy" (1998); and by the Public
Justice Foundation for "winning exceptional victories for the public interest." (2000).
Professor McGinley has litigated many cases before administrative tribunals as well as state
and federal trial and appellate courts. Professor McGinley has traveled to many countries in
connection with his work with grassroots environmental public interest lawyers.
Robert G. McLusky is with Jackson Kelly's Environmental Law Practice Group in Charleston,
West Virginia. He is a 1977 graduate of Colgate University and a 1981 graduate of Washing &
Lee University School of Law. He is a past president of the Energy & Mineral Law Foundation.
For the past decade, most of his time has been spent representing the coal industry in the
mountaintop mining controversy: OVEC v. Aracoma Coal Co., 556 F.3d 177 (4th Cir. 2009);
OVEC v. Bulen, 429 F.3d 493 (4th cir. 2005); Kentuckians for the Commonwealth v. Rivenburgh,
317 F.3d 425 (4th Cir. 2003), and West Virginia Coal Association v. Bragg, 248 F.3d 275
(4th Cir. 2001)). He has also represented much of the coal industry in water permitting and
compliance issues concerning selenium and conductivity
Writings and Publications
"Selenium Issues in the Coal Industry," 30th Annual Energy & Mineral Law Institute,
May 2009
"Civil Litigation under the Clean Water Act," 27th Annual Energy & Mineral Law
Institute, May 2007
"Valley Fills and the Clean Water Act: The Strange Confluence of the Clean Water Act
and SMCRA in Bragg v. Robertson," 20th Annual Energy & Mineral Law Institute,
May 2000
"Recent Permitting and Enforcement Measures to Combat Acid Mine Drainage - Are
They in Contravention of SMCRA?," 17th Annual Eastern Mineral Law Institute,
April 1996
"Citizens' Suits Under Selected Environmental Statutes," presented as part of the West
Virginia University College of Law Continuing Legal Education Series, Feb. 1990
"West Virginia Regulation of Coal Mine Subsidence," Eastern Mineral Law Foundation
Special Institute, Sept. 1989
"Surface Mining Permit Applicant Violator System," presented to the West Virginia
Mining and Reclamation Association, 1989
Larry Meinert
Larry Meinert is a geologist and an expert in the production of wine who divides his time
between teaching and consulting. His experience includes being a professor-in-residence of
geology and serving as a Congressional aid in the office of Congresswoman Gifford of Arizona.
He is an editor of the book, Fine Wine and Terroir: The Geoscience Perspective, a collection of
articles about the production of wine and the physical environment of terroir. Terroir is a French
word that pertains to all aspects of the wine environment, such as climate, soil, geology and
culture. The book, co-edited by R.W. Macqueen, is composed of 17 papers, six from the terroir
symposium held at the 2003 annual meeting of the Geological Society of America, in Seattle,
Washington.
Bill Price
Bill Price was a resident of the southern West Virginia coalfields for more than thirty years. He
has experienced the feelings of anger and helplessness that invariably occur when irresponsible
coal-mining methods bring economic and environmental devastation to communities in the coal-
producing region of Central Appalachia.
Mr. Price became active in the environmental movement in 2001 after flooding heavily damaged
the community where he lives. The failure of a large sediment pond on a mountaintop removal
mining operation directly above this small community contributed to the severity of the flood,
which destroyed and damaged several hundred homes in the valley downstream. Shortly
afterward, he became a member of Coal River Mountain Watch, a local citizens' activist group
dedicated to ending this destructive mining practice.
In 2003, Mr. Price had the opportunity to begin working with the Sierra Club's Environmental
Justice Program. The program works in coal-producing areas of six states (West Virginia,
Kentucky, Virginia, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Tennessee) with members of grassroots
organizations involved in various coal-related issues.
Mr. Price is also involved in co-facilitating diversity and Dismantling Racism workshops.
He now lives in Cleveland, Ohio and continues to work on justice issues in Appalachia and
throughout the country.
Katherine E. " Kay" Slaughter, served as an attorney with Southern environmental law Center in Charlottesville, Va. For 24 years before retiring last August, and she received the Chesapeake Bay Foundation's award as the Virginia Conservationist for 2010. A former mayor of Charlottesville, she is author of an article "Will Uranium Receive a Glowing Welcome in Virginia?" from last summer's edition of University of Virginia Law School's Virginia Environmental Law Journal.
Judd Sneirson is a graduate of Williams College and the University of Pennsylvania Law School,
and joined the New York law firm of Willkie Farr & Gallagher following a judicial clerkship
in federal district court in New Jersey. He began his teaching career in 2000 at Willamette
University College of Law, before joining the University of Oregon law faculty in 2001.
Professor Sneirson's scholarship focuses on corporate law fiduciary duties, particularly as they
relate to sustainability, and he has appeared in the Iowa Law Review, the Wisconsin Law Review,
and the peer-reviewed Corporate Practice Commentator.
Outside the classroom, Professor Sneirson's interests include squash, jazz, opera, zymurgy, and
cooking; he has also traversed the United States by bicycle.
Suzanne Spears is a counsel in WilmerHale's Litigation/Controversy Department, and a member
of the International Arbitration Practice Group. She joined the firm in 2006.
Ms. Spears's practice focuses on international litigation and arbitration. She has represented
companies and sovereigns before US courts, international arbitration tribunals and international
courts. Her practice includes complex commercial disputes, public international law disputes,
investment treaty arbitrations and actions to enforce arbitral awards. She has extensive
experience in disputes involving Spain and Latin America, and the oil and gas industry.
Ms. Spears also has experience with internal investigations, including in the oil and gas,
beverage, reinsurance and mutual fund industries. She has conducted internal investigations
arising out of concerns about US and UK securities regulations, US export controls, and US and
European corrupt practices legislation. She also advises clients on corporate social responsibility
issues and related litigation risks.
In her pro bono practice, Ms. Spears has represented political asylum applicants and conducted
human rights investigations on behalf of Human Rights First, a nonprofit organization based in
New York City and Washington, DC.
Prior to joining WilmerHale in 2006, Ms. Spears practiced in the New York and London offices
of another international law firm. She has also held positions with international human rights and
foreign relations organizations, including the Council on Foreign Relations, the United Nations
and Amnesty International. Additionally, she has served as a legal consultant to the Office
of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights in Bogotá, Colombia; the UN's
Development Fund for Women (UNIFEM); and the Inter-American Institute of Human Rights
(IIHR).