Pathways: Reed Zars ’86

"After I won a case against a refinery that was leaking oil below the North Platte River, the plant completely walled off its plume — and the judgment prompted some other companies to start cleaning up their act, too." — Reed Zars ’86

“Before going to law school, I spent a few years working for a conservation group in Wyoming. We represented land owners and others against the larger energy companies, trying to mitigate the impact of significant energy development in the area. We often used the law — or at least attempted to use the law — to protect people’s rights and the environment.

“Almost inevitably, the conflict would go to court, or to an administrative proceeding, where I would take a back seat and watch as a lawyer handled the case. I began to think more seriously about law school as I realized the greater impact I could make if I had those skills.

“At Northeastern I discovered that I enjoyed the intellectual aspect of the law. I found answers to questions that had puzzled me over the years, and I loved reading and discussing cases.

“After graduating, I worked in the Attorney General’s office in Boston for several years before deciding it was time to return to the West and start my own practice. I cashed out my retirement money, loaded up the U-Haul, and set up shop. I started with a few environmental citizen-suit cases and slowly built a practice from there.

“I’ve had some interesting cases that broke new legal ground. In the 1990s, I brought a case against the Public Service Company of Colorado on the basis of a theory that had no support in existing law other than it made a lot of sense: why can’t we use a plant’s own opacity monitors, which examine the darkness of the plume of emissions, to enforce the Clean Air Act?

“This had never been done before, and the company introduced statements from the federal and state levels to that effect. When the judge agreed that we could use the opacity monitors’ information as evidence of Clean Air Act violations, it sent a shock wave through the industry. The case eventually settled with an agreement to install $150 million worth of pollution control equipment at the plant.”

Reed’s Pathway