Peter Appel joined the University of Georgia Law faculty in 1997 and teaches in the areas of environmental law, natural resources law and property. In 2011, he was named the Alex W. Smith Professor of Law. Peter’s research spans three primary areas: the use of law to promote sustainable commerce, wilderness preservation and the courts, and more traditional doctrinal scholarship in environmental and natural resources law and property. His work has appeared in the Harvard Environmental Law Review, the Stanford Environmental Law Journal, the Boston College Environmental Affairs Review, the Minnesota Law Review, the Washington University Law Quarterly and the Encyclopedia of the Supreme Court of the United States (Macmillan Reference, 2008). In addition to these articles focusing on the environmental and natural resources areas, Peter has addressed more traditional topics in property law such as the role of the entailment in Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice (Georgia Journal of International and Comparative Law, 2013), the rule against perpetuities (Journal of Legal Education, 2004) and Roman law and its relation to American civil procedure (Georgia Journal of International and Comparative Law, 2002). In addition to teaching at UGA, Peter has served as an instructor to senior members of federal agencies. He has trained federal wilderness managers at the Arthur Carhart National Wilderness Training Center – a facility in Missoula, Mont., run jointly by all federal agencies responsible for wilderness management – both in person and by webinar. He also taught environmental laws and regulations to employees of the United States Army Corps of Engineers. Peter developed a practical understanding of environmental issues through his six years of service as an attorney with the Environment and Natural Resources Division of the U.S. Department of Justice. Prior to holding that position, he served as a judicial clerk for Chief Judge Gilbert S. Merritt of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 6th Circuit. Peter earned his bachelor’s and law degrees from Yale University, where he served on the notes editing committee of the Yale Law Journal and was a member of the Yale Law and Policy Review. He is a member of the District of Columbia bar.

Andrew C. Mergen is deputy section chief in the appellate section of the Environment and Natural Resources Division of the United States Department of Justice where among other things, he supervises a wide variety of public lands, wildlife, and energy related litigation. Prior to his position at DOJ, Andrew served as a staff attorney in the Appellate Section. He has presented numerous oral arguments including in all 13 federal courts of appeals and several state intermediate and supreme courts. During the summer of 2009, he was on detail to the Office of White House Counsel where he assisted in the work leading to the confirmation of the Honorable Sonia Sotomayor as associate justice of the Supreme Court of the United States. Andrew has taught at the American University, Villanova University School of Law, Catholic University School of Law, and the University of Hawaii School of Law. He graduated with distinction from the University of Wisconsin-Madison and with honors from the George Washington University School of Law.

Peter Steenland, Jr. is counsel in Sidley Austin LLP’s Washington, D.C. office. He has been a key participant in the development of federal environmental law for over three decades. His practice involves environmental counseling and litigation, with an emphasis on advising energy companies, railroads, electric utilities and other entities on compliance with federal environmental obligations in connection with federal permitting for large scale projects. Peter’s representative activities include advising on the environmental aspects of constructing a natural gas pipeline from the North Slope of Alaska to the contiguous United States, issues relating to a proposed oil pipeline from Alberta, Canada to the Gulf Coast and review of the proposed modernization of an important freight rail tunnel that runs under a portion of an East Coast city. For over 30 years, he was an attorney at the United States Department of Justice. He joined the Department of Justice in 1970, just as Congress was enacting a number of federal environmental statutes, including, among others, the National Environmental Policy Act, the Clean Air and Clean Water Acts, the Endangered Species Act and the Coastal Zone Management Act. Peter participated in preparing the first federal appellate brief addressing the National Environmental Policy Act. First as an appellate attorney, and later as the Chief of the Appellate Section in the Environment and Natural Resources Division at the U.S. Department of Justice, Peter participated directly in the formative litigation shaping and interpreting NEPA and these other measures. He has argued more than 150 cases in the federal courts of appeals, and worked closely with the Office of the Solicitor General when the Division’s cases reached the Supreme Court. Peter’s federal practice also included successfully representing the Federal Aviation Administration in environmental disputes involving airport and airspace improvements. He has successfully litigated and supervised some 35 cases where the FAA has prevailed in environmental disputes, Peter’s other litigation responsibilities included issues arising from the management and use of national forests, national parks and other federal lands, federal eminent domain activities, and federal Indian law. He was the lead federal negotiator in talks between the Navajo Nation and the Hopi Tribe in Arizona that ultimately resolved a 100-year old inter-tribal dispute to contested reservation lands. He also settled a claim on behalf of a California Indian Tribe for damages caused by flooding of tribal lands from irrigation activities. Peter is a member of the District of Columbia bar.

Lisa Jones is counsel in Sidley Austin LLP’s environmental group in the Washington, D.C. office. Prior to joining the firm, she worked for almost two decades in the Appellate Section of the Environment and Natural Resources Division in the United States Department of Justice (DOJ). As assistant section chief, Lisa gained extensive experience supervising and reviewing criminal and civil appellate litigation before the federal and state courts of appeals on behalf of federal agencies (primarily EPA, Department of Energy, and the Department of Defense) in cases involving major environmental statutes such as CERCLA, RCRA, the Clean Air Act, the Clean Water Act, NEPA, TSCA and FIFRA. During her time at DOJ, Lisa also briefed and argued civil and criminal appeals before the United States Courts of Appeals and state supreme courts in cases arising under the aforementioned major environmental statutes; natural resources and public land use statutes including the Endangered Species Act, FLPMA, NFMA, and the General Mining Law; and cases in Native American law, water law, and oil and gas law. In 2010, Lisa received DOJ’s highest award, the John Marshall Award, and in 2011 she received the Attorney General’s Distinguished Service Award. She received her J.D. from the University of Virginia School of Law, where she was on the editorial board of the Virginia Environmental Law Journal, and her B.S. from Vanderbilt University. Following law school, she served as a law clerk to The Honorable Damon J. Keith of the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit. Lisa is a member of the District of Columbia and Virginia bars.