Sean McAllister

Executive Director

Denver, CO

• mclawoffice@comcast.net

Sean McAllister is a public interest attorney, with a background in both litigation and nonprofit management. After three years as an Assistant Attorney General for the state of Colorado doing toxic cleanup compliance work, Sean opened a private practice in 2003. In private practice, Sean has represented large environmental groups, such as Environmental Defense and National Wildlife Federation, and smaller public interest groups including Western Resources Advocates, Forest Guardians, Western Colorado Congress, Sierra Club Kentucky, and Western Mining Action Project. In addition, Sean has represented individual citizens in fights against gravel mines and uranium waste sites. Finally, Sean has also published five law review articles focused on the right of the public to participate freely in environmental decision making processes. Sean also started a criminal justice reform nonprofit in 2004 and serves as its Chairman of the Board of Directors. Sean's private practice also includes work on criminal defense and family law matters.

• Publications & Presentations:
• Book Review: Indigenous People, Environment and The Law, UCLA Journal of Environmental Law & Policy (Fall 2005).
• Presenter, Center for the American West workshop on cleanup of abandoned mines, (October 2004).
• Unnecessarily Hesitant Good Samaritans: Conducting Voluntary Cleanups of Inactive and Abandoned Mines Without Incurring Liability, 33 Environmental Law Reporter 10245 (April 2003), republished by Rocky Mtn. Mineral Law Foundation at 40 Public Land and Resource Law Digest 261 (2003).
• The Confluence of a River and a Community: An Experiment with Community-Based Watershed Management in Southwestern Colorado, 3 U. Denver Water L. Rev. 287 (Spring 2000) (discussing the work of the Animas River Stakeholders Group to remediate abandoned mines).
• Community-based Conservation: Restructuring Institutions to Involve Local Communities in a Meaningful Way. 10 Colo. J. Intntl. Envtl. L. & Pol. 195 (1999); republished in Indigenous People, Environment and The Law, Lawrence Watters ed., Carolina Academic Press (2004).
• Convention on Public Access to Information, Public Participation in Decision-Making, and Access to Justice in Environmental Matters. Colo. J. Int'l. Envtl. L. & Pol'y 1998 Y.B. 187 (1999).

• Professional Associates & Bar Admittance:
• Admitted to Colorado Bar, U.S. Dist. Ct. of Colorado, U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals
• Admitted Pro Hac Vice to U.S. Dist. Courts of Montana and District of Columbia
• Colorado Bar Association, Continental Divide Local Bar Association
• Colorado Criminal Defense Bar
• Member of Town of Breckenridge Open Space Advisory Committee.
• Chair Board of Directors & Founder, Sensible Colorado, a criminal justice reform nonprofit.