Long-Time Northern Rockies Attorney Steps Into Leadership Role for Earthjustice Office

Earthjustice has promoted long-time Northern Rockies attorney Jenny Harbine to managing attorney of its Bozeman office, the organization announced today. Harbine has served as acting managing attorney for the office since last summer.

“For people who live in the Northern Rockies, clean water and air, healthy wildlife populations, and wild public lands aren’t political issues,” said Harbine. “They are at the heart of our quality of life and the health of our families. To be able to continue to work together fighting on behalf of the places and species we all love is a great honor.”

Harbine stepped in as acting managing attorney when Tim Preso left to head the organization’s Biodiversity Defense Program in July 2021. She has been with the organization since 2006.

Harbine’s legal practice has covered the breadth of environmental issues facing the Northern Rockies. Most recently, her work has focused on securing a transition of the region’s energy sector from dirty fossil fuels to clean energy resources. She has also litigated to protect imperiled wildlife species, prevent destructive hard rock mining projects, and protect communities from air and water pollution from coal-fired energy generation.

Recently, Harbine won a Montana Supreme Court victory striking down state legislation that eliminated the public’s ability to prevent unlawfully approved projects from moving forward without adequate consideration of their environmental consequences. The Court’s decision in Park County Envtl. Council v. Mont. Dep’t of Envtl. Quality, 2020 MT 303, was the first time in more than 20 years that the state’s high court enforced Montana’s constitutional right to a clean and healthful environment.

Harbine currently leads the legal team attempting to reverse the Trump administration’s coal leasing policy and reinstate a moratorium of federal coal leasing.

Born and raised in Western Montana, Harbine now lives with her family in Livingston, Montana, near the Yellowstone River. Prior to joining Earthjustice in 2006, she was an attorney at a small environmental and land use law firm in San Francisco, California. She is a 2003 graduate of the University of California, Berkeley, School of Law.