The Lawyers Giving Us Hope

The second Trump administration has brought a burn-it-all down approach to institutions and government, including environmental protections. And for the first year of the administration, it’s been lawyers who are rushing toward the fires and trying to put them out.

At Earthjustice, we’ve opened nearly three times as many legal matters as we did in the first year under Trump 45. And we are not simply playing defense. We are continuing to push for progress toward a healthy environment in communities, at the state level, and around the globe.

We’re able to take on these fights and win because of our tireless, courageous, and deeply experienced attorneys. Our team of legal experts is more than 200 strong – and with your support, it will continue to grow. As we close out the year, six of them shared what motivates them.

Candice Youngblood

Senior Attorney

When Earthjustice attorney Candice Youngblood first learned that the area where she grew up has the nation’s worst air pollution, she was angry.

The Inland Empire was once a major hub for the citrus industry. Today, however, this region of southern California serves as the national epicenter of warehouse logistics. Brightly colored orange groves have been replaced by giant warehouses and big-rig semis that discharge diesel pollution into the environment and people’s lungs.

In 2015, Youngblood turned her anger into action. She joined Earthjustice’s nascent Los Angeles office as a litigation assistant working on cases that eventually set the stage for Earthjustice’s Right To Zero campaign. A state-by-state effort, RTZ works to clean up polluted areas like the Inland Empire by electrifying everything, including our transportation. After finishing law school, Youngblood returned to Earthjustice and says she feels lucky to push for policies that clean the air and create good jobs in her community.

“We’re not trying to erase these industries. We’re trying to clean them up,” says Youngblood, whose dad was a long-haul trucker.

In late 2024, community groups in the Inland Empire got a big win after a judge ruled that decisionmakers must take a harder look at a warehouse proposal that would bring 1,300 heavy-duty diesel trucks every day to an already-overburdened, predominantly working-class Latino community.

“Letting our clients know that we won this case was incredible,” says Youngblood. “They expressed such disbelief that justice was served. This is what motivates me to do this work and helps me maintain hope.”

 

Drew Caputo

Vice President of Litigation for Lands, Wildlife, and Oceans

Taking on the biggest environmental fights is Earthjustice’s bread and butter. Drew Caputo has helped lead many of these, including defending the country’s oceans from oil and gas drilling and keeping our national forests intact.

Does he ever feel the pressure?

“Sure,” Caputo admits. “But there’s pressure because it’s important. There’s a huge amount at stake. Is a kid with asthma going to be able to go outside to play, because the Trump administration is tearing down air pollution limits? Is a species going to go extinct because of what they’re planning? I can’t imagine being in a job where I couldn’t help fight back.”

This work is not for the faint of heart. Some cases, like defending our national forests, require decades of fighting repeated court challenges against industry and the government. Yet Caputo only needs to think of the wonder of our remaining wild lands – and the loss to humanity should we allow them to be destroyed – to stay motivated. “I can go hiking in the Tongass National Forest among trees that were standing when the Constitution was adopted,” says Caputo, “because our ancestors protected that forest. I feel a real sense of obligation to do the same thing for my kids.”

At home, Caputo disengages with a refreshing morning bike ride. “Biking is great because it’s the right speed to go through beautiful places,” he says. “That’s particularly nice in California, which I think is just an outdoor paradise.”

Marvin C. Brown IV

Senior Attorney

Days after the 2024 presidential election, senior attorney Marvin C. Brown IV found himself in a room full of Texas-based environmental advocates. Despite the news, Brown noticed that nobody was retreating into nihilism. These organizers were used to navigating hostile administrations, and they were ready to fight.

Brown felt his own energy coming back.

“Being in a space directly with clients gave me hope,” he recalls. “It was a helpful reminder that we’re not alone, and there are a lot of people that agree with us.”

Brown again found strength in numbers last summer. He had only 60 days to help prepare over 400 pages of expert comments urging the administration not to repeal the endangerment finding, which underpins the biggest laws that regulate climate pollution. This collective response established a crucial legal record that will form the basis for future court challenges.

“Everyone approached it with a deep sense of respect for each other,” says Brown. “There was this acknowledgement that the only way we can succeed is when we’re all working together.”

Living in D.C., Brown has to make an extra effort to disengage from the news and avoid doomscrolling. That includes running: “I’ve never liked it or experienced a runner’s high, so I’m doing it in spite.” And, to his surprise, knitting: “I do it to avoid Twitter. I love watching sports, but too often I’ll be on the couch and scrolling. So, I started knitting while watching sports and found that to be the right combination for me.”

Kristen Boyles

Northwest Regional Office Managing Attorney

Earthjustice attorney Kristen Boyles is no stranger to formidable opponents. In the 2000s, she repeatedly took on the massive private timber industry to protect salmon, northern spotted owls, and old-growth forests in the Pacific Northwest. She also successfully took on Big Oil as part of a coalition that stopped every single proposal for crude oil export terminals in the Pacific Northwest.

Boyles has spent her career using the Endangered Species Act (ESA) to protect iconic American species like gray wolves and Pacific Northwest salmon. Her favorite species, however, is the lesser known but equally intrepid marbled murrelet, a shy, robin-sized seabird that flies inland each day to nest hundreds of feet up in an old-growth tree.

Like all animals, including humans, murrelets depend on a healthy habitat and functioning ecosystem to survive. That’s why Boyles considers the Trump administration’s latest plans to attack habitat protections under the ESA as “one of the biggest threats to the Act in her career.”

“You don’t have to be a biologist to know that if you destroy the habitat, if you destroy the home where a critter lives, you are hurting the species,” she says.

Boyles’ ESA clients have ranged from tribal groups and fishermen to a sitting congressperson. She says Earthjustice has the honor of working with our clients to figure out how to make things better — even when times are bleak. When Trump was re-elected, Boyles recalls, “Not a single client said, ‘We want to hide and cover our heads.’”

“They understand that we have their backs.”

Hana Vizcarra

Senior Attorney

Lawyers are one of the last lines of defense when a presidential administration tries to put itself above the law.

Earthjustice attorney Hana Vizcarra has experienced this firsthand.

In early 2025, Vizcarra spearheaded one of Earthjustice’s first lawsuits against the new Trump administration after it illegally withheld grant funds set aside through the Inflation Reduction Act to help farmers, local governments, community groups, and tribes transitioning to clean energy. Within weeks of our lawsuit, some grantees received the funds they were promised.

“This is not just about a group losing money,” says Vizcarra.

In addition to harming the grantees themselves, Trump’s actions sever crucial lifelines for the underserved areas that depend on these funds for critical projects. Those include emergency planning for the next big storm, or long-overdue erosion maintenance to keep vulnerable neighborhoods from literally falling into the water.

“We can’t stop the Trump administration entirely on our own by any means, but we can make it harder for them to do horrible things and force them to fight it out in court,” says Vizcarra, who is now helping lead other grant-related lawsuits against Trump.

Vizcarra finds strength in connecting with other attorneys across Earthjustice and the wider legal space, as well as within her local community.

“It’s a hard time when you’re in communities that are being attacked,” says Vizcarra. “What helps me is knowing I have a place in pushing back, even if I can’t be part of every fight.”

Tania Galloni

Florida Regional Office Managing Attorney

When Tania Galloni heard about the cruel immigrant detention center being built in the Florida Everglades, she did not hesitate.

“It was just so fundamentally wrong. Wanting to detain up to 5,000 people in the heart of the Everglades, setting up these makeshift structures. The impetus was just – OK, what do we need to do? Because we’re doing it.”

Galloni and a team of environmental lawyers challenged the Everglades detention center in court. They won a crucial early victory when the judge sided with them, ordering the center to wind down operations while the case played out. Yet when the state of Florida appealed, an appellate court paused the order.

Reporters have asked Galloni: was it worth it? Why fight if you aren’t sure of victory?

To Galloni, the answer is obvious.

“Anytime we don’t show up for a fight, it’s a loss,” she says. “We won’t always win, but showing up is the only way you can win. The only way you lose is if you don’t fight – and then, you’re ceding ground. If we don’t fight, then we’re allowing a world to develop where bad things get normalized. And we’re not going to do that. We’re the ones showing up saying no.

“Be visible. People look around to inform their understanding of what is right, what is wrong, and what gets normalized. Let people know who you are and what you stand for, because guess what? A bunch of other people feel that way too. And courage is contagious. So, if I can be courageous, so will the next person and the next person. Showing up for the fight is resetting the calculus on the other side of what’s possible and what’s right.”