From CLIPI's First Legal Hire to Global Climate Leader

In 1972, Mary Nichols became CLIPI's first legal hire. She persuaded my co-founders and me to take her on as a law clerk while she studied for the California Bar Exam.

Her pitch? She might be able to raise foundation money based on her pre-law school experience.

Mary delivered. She attracted CLIPI's first grant—from the Playboy Foundation.

The grant funded her work on a First Amendment case representing the Associated Students of UC Riverside. The federal government had refused to mail a brochure containing information about where to find birth control and abortion services in Riverside.

We won in the Ninth Circuit. After Roe v. Wade was overturned, that decision gained new importance for protecting free speech about reproductive healthcare.

But Mary's real impact came when she turned her attention to cleaning up air pollution.

At our UCLA event last year, Ann Carlson noted: "People know Mary for all her government service, but her work as a lawyer at CLIPI was extraordinarily instrumental in getting the Clean Air Act implemented in the way that it needed to be to begin to clean up Southern California's air."

Mary represented Riverside and San Bernardino, suing EPA to force Southern California to take stronger measures to cut air pollution. It was one of the first lawsuits filed under the Clean Air Act.

From there, Mary went on to lead as Chair of the California Air Resources Board, serve in the Clinton administration's EPA, and become one of the world's foremost experts on air quality and climate policy. She shaped California's cap-and-trade program, electric vehicle standards, and renewable energy policies that influenced climate action globally.

Judge Harry Pregerson, who later presided over the Century Freeway case, used Mary's complaint in the Clean Air case as the model he gave all his law clerks. He told them: if you want to be a good lawyer, you need to be a good writer—and this is how it's done.

Mary's career exemplifies what CLIPI's fellowship program could launch: a recent law graduate with talent and commitment, given the opportunity to work on cases that mattered, building skills and experience that would shape decades of public service.