Advisory Board
Irv is a Senior Counsel at Sullivan & Cromwell LLP, which he joined after graduating from law school and where the focus of his practice prior to his retirement was commercial real estate. A longstanding board member and past board president of Environmental Advocates, Irv has also worked with other environmental groups, including the Hudson Highlands Land Trust, Scenic Hudson, and Riverkeeper, in protecting open space and in safeguarding our waters against threats such as those posed by PCBs, combined sewer overflows and oil spills. In an effort to reduce sprawl and preserve open space, he has served on committees preparing comprehensive plans and zoning codes for two neighboring towns in Putnam County, and with his wife Elizabeth, has placed conservation easements on their properties. Concerned about their carbon footprint, they drive an electric powered Volt and have recently converted their Garrison home from heating by propane to air-sourced heat pumps powered by their new 30-panel solar array. Irv and Elizabeth live in Manhattan and Garrison.
Michael B. Gerrard, Andrew Sabin Professor of Professional Practice at Columbia Law School, teaches courses on environmental law, climate change law, and energy regulation, and is director of the Sabin Center for Climate Change Law. He is also a member and former chair of the faculty of Columbia University’s Earth Institute.
From 1979 through 2008, he practiced environmental law in New York, most recently as partner in charge of the New York office of Arnold & Porter. Upon joining the Law School faculty in 2009, he became the firm’s senior counsel. His practice involved trying numerous cases and arguing many appeals in federal and state courts and administrative tribunals; handling the environmental aspects of numerous transactions and development projects; and providing regulatory compliance advice to a wide variety of clients in the private and public sectors.
A prolific writer in environmental law and climate change, Gerrard twice received the Association of American Publishers’ Best Law Book award for works on environmental law and brownfields. He has written or edited 13 books, including Global Climate Change and U.S. Law, the leading work in its field (second edition published in 2014, co-edited with Jody Freeman), and the 12-volume Environmental Law Practice Guide.
Gerrard was the 2004-2005 chair of the American Bar Association’s 10,000-member section of environment, energy, and resources. He also chaired the New York City Bar Association’s executive committee and the New York State Bar Association’s environmental law section. He has served on the executive committees of the boards of the Environmental Law Institute and the American College of Environmental Lawyers. Several independent rating services ranked Gerrard as the leading environmental lawyer in New York and one of the leading environmental lawyers in the world.
Gerrard has taught courses at Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Studies and New York University Law School; as a visiting professor at Universite Paris 1 Panteon-Sorbonne; and as visiting distinguished scholar at Vermont Law School. He has also lectured on environmental law in Great Britain, France, the Netherlands, Denmark, Norway, Spain, Italy, Vatican City, Malta, Israel, China, Taiwan, India, Japan, Chile, Brazil, The Marshall Islands, Canada, and the U.S.
Henry Neal’s primary environmental purpose these days is protection and improvement of public parks in the Hudson Valley. He is Chair of the Westchester County Parks, Recreation and Conservation Board, a Director of Westchester Parks Foundation and Member of Taconic Region (Westchester, Putnam, Dutchess, Columbia) State Parks, Recreation and Historic Preservation Commission. Henry has a long history with Environmental Advocates and Environmental Planning Lobby (EPL). He became an EPL Director in 1973 and continued after EPL was reorganized as “EANY” until December 2019 when he joined EANY’s Board of Advisors. Henry served various roles, including Treasurer, Secretary and President of EPL, was Chair of several EA Committees and Chair of the EPL Institute, a related entity. Henry is a semi-retired attorney with a general practice law office in White Plains.
As a child, Ted spent his summers in New Hampshire watching nature, and in particular, ants. He carried this interest to college, where he studied biology and performed research in the lab of E. O. Wilson. In collaboration with Dr. Nigel Franks, he published Dominance and reproductive success among slave-making worker ants in the journal Nature. After college, he worked for 11 years as a portfolio manager and proprietary trader at firms including Morgan Stanley, First Boston, and J.P. Morgan. He and his wife took a sabbatical in the cloud forest in Monteverde, Costa Rica in 1996 where he got his first taste of teaching. When he returned to New York, he became a biology and computer science teacher at private schools in New York and New Jersey. Ted lives in Manhattan with his wife, son, compost bin, and an occasional invasion of fruit flies.
Lise Strickler is a co-founder of the Three Cairns Group, a social impact firm engaged in addressing the climate crisis through venture investing, philanthropy and public policy advocacy. Three Cairns Group also focuses on ensuring equitable access to education, mental health services and careers. Lise is a trustee of the Environmental Defense Fund and co-chairs EDF’s 501(c)(4), the Environmental Defense Action Fund. In addition, she serves on the Columbia Climate Board of Advisors Executive Committee, the advisory board of the Tamer Center for Social Enterprise at Columbia Business School and formerly co-chaired the Yale Development Council. An avid hiker, she is an advisory board member of the Adirondack Trail Improvement Society.
Lise graduated from Yale College with a degree in English and earned an MBA from Columbia Business School. Early in her career, she worked in Investor Relations for Tri-Star and Columbia Pictures and as an executive consultant for the Sony Pictures New Technology group. Lise and her husband Mark Gallogly live in New York City.
Edna Sussman is an independent arbitrator and mediator and the Distinguished ADR Practitioner in Residence at Fordham University School of Law, specializing in commercial, energy and environmental disputes. She started her career as a partner at the law firm of White & Case LLP and later served as the Executive Director of Federated Conservationists of Westchester County. Through her leadership in both local and national bar associations she has been a strong advocate for the use of alternative dispute resolution modalities and collaborative processes for the resolution of environmental and energy disputes.
Edna serves as President of the College of Commercial Arbitrators, on the Board of the American Arbitration Association, as Chair of the AAA-ICDR Foundation, and as Vice-Chair of the New York International Arbitration Center. A graduate of Barnard College 1970, and Columbia Law School 1973, Edna has lectured and published widely on arbitration, mediation, energy and environmental issues.
Carol Ash served as commissioner of the New York State Office of Parks, Recreation and Historic Preservation where she led the agency’s efforts to restore and develop infrastructure within the state’s 178 state parks and 35 historic sites. Carol also led efforts to restore and create New York’s Walkway over the Hudson State Historic Park – the world’s longest, elevated pedestrian bridge. A staunch advocate of environmental issues, Carol also served as executive director of the Palisades Interstate Park Commission, New York State director of The Nature Conservancy, director of the Office of Environmental Policy for the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, and regional director of the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation. In addition, Carol co-founded the Alliance for New York State Parks, an Open Space Institute (OSI) initiative, to protect and improve New York’s state parks and historic sites. She is also a current board member of OSI, and the Mohawk Hudson Land Conservancy.