conference Speakers
Environmental Justice Conference • March 26, 9AM-1PM CST
About Sandbranch, Texas: Sandbranch, Tex, is an unincorporated community in the southeastern corner of Dallas County. Just 14 miles from one of the richest cities in America, Sandbranch is the poorest community in Dallas County with an average household income of $720/month. The community has been without running water, sewage service, and trash pick up for over 30 years.
Professor Lisa Rich, Moderator: Lisa A. Rich is currently on leave from the Texas A&M School of Law where she served as an Associate Instructional Professor and the creator and director of the Residency Externship Program in Public Policy. During her tenure at Texas A&M, Professor Rich developed seven courses, taught fourteen different courses, and served as advisor to numerous student groups including the Agriculture Law Society, the Health Law Society, and the Texas A&M Law Review. In September 2020, she was awarded the Texas A&M Association of Former Students Distinguished Teaching Award, College Level, and was named LARW professor of the year in 2019. During her leave, Professor Rich founded LAR Strategies, LLC, a strategic communications, education, and policy firm, and has served as a business restructuring consultant for a major construction company. She currently resides in Laramie, Wyoming with her horse, Aprhodite, and her cat, Gertrude Marie.
Mary Nash: President of Sandbranch Development Board and Water Supply Co. working to bring amenities to the Sandbranch community. Miss Nash is following in the footsteps of her mother who is one of the original advocates for the Sandbranch community and has lived in Sandbranch her entire life.
Mark McPherson: Mark McPherson is the sole attorney at McPherson Law Firm PLLC. He has been developing his unique focus on environmental and water issues for over twenty years and is now a nationally recognized expert in these areas. He intentionally chose areas of law he enjoys and has limited his practice accordingly.
Upon graduating from Washington & Lee University School of Law in 1990, he worked for five years with a large Dallas law firm, Mankoff, Hill, Held & Goldburg, PC. At Mankoff Hill, he learned commercial real estate law, environmental law, lending law, and commercial law from some of the best attorneys in Texas. Whereas many young lawyers in law firms work for departments, he spent most of his time at Mankoff Hill working for one attorney who mentored him not just in the law, but in all aspects of the practice. It was an invaluable experience that allowed him to learn vital negotiation skills and the psychology and momentum of transactions.
He resigned from Mankoff Hill in 1995 to begin his own practice. Realizing the crucial effect of environmental law and water rights on the value of real estate and businesses, as well as the need to bring land use and business experience to these areas, he has narrowed his practice over time to environmental law and water rights. This steady transformation has culminated in the tightly focused practice he has today and the contributions he has made to the legal community.
George McGraw: George McGraw is an advocate specializing in the human right to water and sanitation in the United States. George is the founder and CEO of digdeep.org, the only WASH (water, sanitation and hygiene) organization serving the 2.2 million Americans without access to basic plumbing. Founded in 2011, DigDeep develops education, research and infrastructure projects aimed at closing the Water Gap.
Under George's leadership, DigDeep won the 2018 US Water Prize for its Navajo Water Project, which has brought water to hundreds of Native families across the Southwest. In 2019, George led an effort to publish Closing the Water Access Gap in the United States, the first national study on the domestic water crisis.
George has written for The New York Times, SSIR and The Nation, and spoken at events hosted by Clinton Foundation, The Atlantic, and many others. George is an Ashoka Fellow, a Civil Society Fellow at The Aspen Institute, and former Social Entrepreneur in Residence at Stanford University. George holds an M.A. in International Law and Conflict Management from the United Nations University for Peace.
Josė Bravo: José is a long-time leader on just transition, climate justice and chemicals issues as they relate to environmental justice (EJ) communities and Labor (Organized and Unorganized). Born in México and brought to the U.S. as a child, José’s work in social justice issues is rooted in his upbringing in the Southern California avocado fields alongside both his parents. Since the 1990s, José has gained recognition as a national and international leader in the EJ movement. José has worked on numerous campaigns in the U.S. and in México in his 30 years of organizing. Bravo is currently the Executive Director of Just Transition Alliance. The Just Transition Alliance was founded in 1997 as a coalition of environmental justice and labor organizations. Together with frontline workers, and community members who live along the fence-line of polluting industries, they strive to create healthy workplaces and communities.
Professor Noah Hall: Noah Hall's expertise is in environmental and water law, and his research focuses on issues of environmental governance, federalism, and transboundary pollution and resource management.
He joined the Wayne Law faculty in 2005. Previously, he taught at the University of Michigan Law School and was an attorney with the National Wildlife Federation, where he managed the Great Lakes Water Resources Program for the nation's largest conservation organization. Hall also worked in private practice for several years, representing a variety of business and public-interest clients in litigation and regulatory matters. He has extensive litigation experience and numerous published decisions in state and federal courts. He continues to represent a variety of clients in significant environmental policy disputes. From 2016-2019, Hall served as special assistant attorney general for Michigan for the Flint water investigation.