Gary A. Davis is an environmental attorney and consultant with over 30 years of experience in environmental law, policy, and technology. He currently manages a public interest environmental law firm representing environmental organizations, community groups, and citizens throughout the Southeast in litigation involving environmental permits, violations of environmental regulations, environmental contamination, environmental impact statements, coal-fired power plant certificates of need, and land use.
Previously, Davis was the Director of Environmental Policy for the Conservancy of Southwest Florida, a 40-year old regional environmental organization based in Naples, Florida, where he directed the Conservancy’s advocacy efforts focused on estuaries and coastal watersheds protection, land use policy, wildlife habitat conservation, and Everglades restoration. His legal experience in the Southeast has spanned 25 years, beginning with his founding of an office of the Legal Environmental Assistance Foundation in Tennessee in 1983. His academic experience includes founding and directing an environmental research center at the University of Tennessee, called the Center for Clean Products and Clean Technologies, which he directed until 2002. Davis has also taught environmental law as an adjunct professor in the UT College of Law and taught environmental policy as a visiting professor at the International Institute for Industrial Environmental Economics at Lund University in Sweden. Davis was awarded a Lifetime Achievement Award by the Tennessee Environmental Council, a statewide coalition, in 1991. He also has government experience and worked as an environmental policy analyst in the California Governor’s Office of Appropriate Technology in the early 1980s.
Prior to attending law school, Davis worked as an environmental engineer with an environmental consulting firm that focused on pollution prevention in the chemical and pharmaceutical industries. He has been widely published and speaks nationally and internationally on environmental topics. Davis earned his law degree from the University of Tennessee and holds a Bachelor of Science degree in chemical engineering from the University of Cincinnati.