Scott W. Stern is a senior attorney with Earthjustice’s Biodiversity Defense Program. He works on a wide range of matters, including opposing destructive mineral exploration projects in the Patagonia Mountains, fighting reckless attempts to industrialize outer space, and using the public trust doctrine in an effort to save the Great Salt Lake. He has litigated cases across the country to protect imperiled ecosystems and the wildlife and communities that depend on them.

Prior to joining Earthjustice, Scott was a Justice Catalyst fellow with Greenpeace International and clerked for the Hon. M. Margaret McKeown of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. He is a graduate of Yale Law School, where he was an articles editor for the Yale Law Journal. In law school, he won the Benjamin Scharps Prize (best paper by a 3L), the Colby Townsend Prize (best paper by a 2L), and the Joseph Parker Prize (best legal history paper), among other honors.

Outside of Earthjustice, Scott is a writer and critic. He is the author of three nonfiction books, including The Trials of Nina McCall, which was a New York Times editor’s choice selection and has been optioned for feature film. He is currently working on a new history of the U.S. environmental movement. His work has appeared in the New York Review of Books, The New Republic, The Atlantic, and other popular and scholarly publications. A proud product of Pittsburgh, he received his B.A. and M.A. from Yale University, summa cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa.