Equipped with a PhD in regional planning from the University of Illinois, Lisa first moved to New Mexico in 2003 for a postdoc at Los Alamos National Laboratory, where she worked for almost 10 years.

 

Lisa decided to go to law school to gain additional credibility and credentials to pursue a career path focused on water law and policy. She chose the University of Arizona and Arizona Law because they "are very well respected for all things water." She took the plunge, so to speak, moving to Tucson in 2011.

 

The friendships Lisa made in law school made a lasting impression, and she truly enjoyed being in dialogue with her classmates on a wide variety of ethical and legal questions throughout her time at Arizona Law.

 

"One great memory is from new student orientation when we were being asked a tricky ethics question about what we would do if another attorney accidentally sent us a document that we weren't meant to see. Most of the students were trying to figure out how to answer without looking bad, but one of my classmates said she absolutely would read it, which was probably what all of us would actually do but nobody wanted to say it. I knew right then that I wanted to be her friend, and indeed, she and I became very close friends and have stayed in touch."

 

Lisa recalls that a favorite place in Tucson was walking her dog along the Rillito River and through the campus farm to visit the sheep, goats, and horses: "I'm not much of a city person, so those places were my refuges."

 

Lisa has no doubt that her law degree helped her transition to her current work with a public land agency and honed her expertise and credentials in water law and policy -- a vital issue throughout the U.S. Southwest.

 

After graduation, she began working remotely from Santa Fe for a very small firm in Las Cruces, mostly representing irrigation districts in southern New Mexico and developing a water marketing policy for the lower Rio Grande. After two years, she took a position at the New Mexico State Land Office (SLO) in Santa Fe. She explains that SLO manages 9 million acres of surface estate and 16 million acres of mineral estate to generate revenue for public schools and other trust beneficiaries.

 

"Water and environmental issues are woven through a lot of the agency's work, and the current Commissioner of Public Lands is very interested in water conservation, particularly given the high demand for water for oil and gas development. I love the variety in my work and never knowing what will be coming across my desk in a given day. The agency has a lot of technical staff, and I particularly enjoy working with them."

 

Lisa is making the most of living in northern New Mexico:

 

"I bought a house last fall in a small community about 30 minutes from downtown Santa Fe and adjacent to the Santa Fe National Forest, and at the moment that's my favorite place to be with my dogs, cats, and chickens, though I also love to fly fish on the Pecos River."

 

Thank you again to Steptoe & Johnson, Phoenix, for providing a calm and comfortable space for us to provide lunch during the recent bar exam for our Arizona Law bar-takers. 

And, here's to our bar-takers. Congratulations on making it through the exam and remembering to take a moment to breathe -- and eat! -- in the midst of it.