Environmental Lawyers

I would like to apply for a position as a lawyer in the environmental movement described by Alexander Cockburn in “Green Message Needs a New Messenger” (Column Left, Dec. 8). As I understand it, while “soft, corporate and politically ductile,” lawyers in this movement nonetheless get “spacious D.C. quarters,” six-figure incomes from “corporate foundations,” and work “swollen with corporate slush, hand in glove with arrogant federal agencies.” What a deal.

As for my credentials, I have been an environmental/public interest lawyer for 22 years. Obviously, my colleagues have been holding out on me since my world bears no relationship to Cockburn’s. Instead, it is inhabited by a handful of dedicated lawyers who, in and out of Washington, fight in the trenches every day against corporate power and government malfeasance, ridiculously outnumbered, understaffed and underpaid.

Their “spacious” offices are usually the size of a walk-in closet, overflowing with legal pleadings, documents and phone messages. They frequently represent the very grass-roots organizations, “out there,” that Cockburn so idolizes. Indeed, following Martin Luther King’s axiom, “agitate, legislate, litigate,” they have brought countless lawsuits to stop the “incinerator in the poor part of town or cancer clusters associated with poison waters and soils” Cockburn rails against. They deserve accolades not disdain.

With regard to the recent election results and what they mean for the environment, I have some free legal advice for pundits like Cockburn, the “thinkers” not “doers”: stop looking for scapegoats, start looking for answers.

AL MEYERHOFF

Senior Attorney

Natural Resources Defense Council

San Francisco