Blue Mountains Biodiversity Project welcomes our new Staff Attorney!

BMBP is excited to welcome Cooper Rodgers, our new Staff Attorney!  Cooper is a recent graduate of Lewis and Clark Law School, and a Wyss Inaugural Scholar. While at Lewis and Clark, Cooper volunteered with the Natural Resources Defense Council, externed with Klamath-Siskiyou Wildlands Center, and participated in the Earthrise Law Center clinic. As a student at the Law School, Cooper also helped BMBP with potential litigation. Cooper is very enthusiastic about working with BMBP to protect forests and streams in eastern Oregon, and notes that “meaningful public service became my long-term career goal. During college I majored in Environmental Science, but came to realize that the hardest battle for our environment is in the courtroom.”

Many thanks to Allison LaPlante and Tom Buchele for making this possible! Allison and Tom knew of BMBP’s long-standing need for a staff attorney, as well as Cooper’s commitment to public lands advocacy work. They connected Cooper with BMBP for potential employment, and Tom helped us ensure the hiring process went smoothly. Allison LaPlante is Co-Director of Earthrise Law Center at Lewis and Clark. Tom Buchele is Co-Director, Clinical Professor, and Managing attorney at Earthrise Law Center, and has worked extensively with BMBP on cases such as the 2014 Snow Basin case, which set important legal precedent and saved over 10,000 large trees.

BMBP has a strong track record of winning court cases and setting environmentally beneficial legal precedent. (You can read about some of them here). Having Cooper as our Staff Attorney will help BMBP to continue this important work more effectively, and provide much-needed increased access to legal help and advice on potential cases.