Lizzy Potter has spent more than a decade advocating for conservation and community interests on behalf of dozens of clients in cases throughout the West. Since joining Advocates for the West in 2015, her work has stretched from the coast of California to the western slope of Colorado and from the northern border in Washington to the southern border in Arizona. Her current docket focuses on protecting special places like national conservation areas, reducing the harmful impacts of federal dam operations, and challenging oil and gas decisions.
Before joining the team, she worked as an associate attorney at a public interest law firm based in Seattle, where she worked on federal citizen suits, state permit challenges, land use appeals, and open government disputes involving clean water, wildlife, and fossil fuel issues. Lizzy graduated from Lewis & Clark Law School, where she also received an LLM in Environmental & Natural Resources Law, and earned her BA from Denison University in Environmental Studies with a Biology concentration.
Lizzy lives in Bend, Oregon, where she loves spending time exploring high desert landscapes and the Deschutes River basin. She is committed to remedying historic inequities and injustices stemming from the conservation field and is helping to lead efforts at Advocates for the West to do so.
As climate change rapidly changes Western landscapes, the conservation field must focus on protecting the communities and ecosystems most at risk. I enjoy working with clients to craft and execute legal strategies that help address such pressing environmental threats.