Our History

The richness and complexity of ENRD’s history is inseparable from the larger story of the growth and maturation of American society in the 20th Century.

In the early 1900s, Americans struggled to balance competing interests stemming from westward expansion, preservation of natural spaces, resource disputes on public and tribal lands, and other such issues.  As disagreements erupted over these difficult questions, the Public Lands Division was created to step into the breach and address the critical litigation that ensued.

As the population grew and the cities filled, attention shifted from maintaining an agrarian society to building the industrial base, followed by the innovation of the computer age and the evolution of an interdependent global marketplace and economy.  So too, the Lands Division has “grown up” with the nation, widening our mission as needed to embrace the environmental concerns that confront our people.

Each new generation of ENRD attorneys builds on the work of those who have come before.   As we begin a new century, we are mindful of the strong legacy that we have inherited and the future opportunities that stretch before us.