Melissa K. Scanlan, Founder and Senior Counsel

Raised in a rural area of Wisconsin, Melissa Kwaterski Scanlan returned to her home state in 1999 to open Midwest Environmental Advocates. She initially received two fellowships that allowed her to work for the public interest.

Ms. Scanlan received a law degree and a master of science from the University of California-Berkeley. While at Berkeley, she received several scholarships and awards, including the 1999 Harmon Award for the Best Environmental Law Writing at UC-Berkeley and the Alvin & Sadie Landis Scholarship in Water Law, a scholarship that was given to one member of the class of 1999 for outstanding work in the field of water law.

She is the author of two law review articles involving property rights. These are titled "The Evolution of the Public Trust Doctrine and the Degradation of Trust Resources: Courts, Trustees, and Political Power in Wisconsin" [PublicTrust.pdf] and "The End of Welfare and Constitutional Protections for the Poor: A Case Study of the Wisconsin Works Program and Due Process Rights," published in 27 Ecology Law Quarterly 135 (2000)  and 13 Berkeley Women's Law Journal 153 (May 1998), respectively.

Ms. Scanlan has been active in the environmental movement for a decade and has worked as an environmental advocate with the Natural Resources Defense Council (SF office), Wisconsin's Department of Justice, Communities for a Better Environment (SF office), and Cohen, Milstein, Hausfeld & Toll.

For more information, contact Melissa K. Scanlan at mscanlan@midwestadvocates.org.