As one of California’s leading authorities on environmental and land use law, Carlyle W. Hall Jr. has represented commercial, governmental and environmental interests. During the course of his career, Mr. Hall has played a major role in some of Southern California’s biggest and most controversial infrastructure and environmental issues and projects, including such public works projects as the Century Freeway (I-105) and the LAX Master Plan, and such private sector projects as the Irvine Industrial Complex, Playa Vista and the Tejon Ranch, as well as many other large and small residential, commercial and mixed-use projects throughout Southern California. Mr. Hall is also a noted trial and appellate litigator, focusing on environmental and land use cases. He has appeared and argued before the United States Supreme Court and the California Supreme court numerous times.
Early in his career, Mr. Hall was a co-founder of the highly regarded Center for Law in the Public Interest, one of the first public interest law firms in Los Angeles and in the United States. As co-director and staff attorney of the Center for almost 20 years, Mr. Hall’s legal work helped create California’s current environmental and land use regulatory framework.
He also co-founded People for Parks, a multi-ethnic organization dedicated to improving parks and open space, and served as its chairman when it sponsored two successful ballot measures in which Los Angeles County voters overwhelmingly approved over $1 billion for acquisition and improvement of public parks in cities throughout the county. He has previously served on the governing boards of the Planning and Conservation League, the League to Save Lake Tahoe and Common Cause’s California chapter, among others.
Mr. Hall served as a commissioner of the Los Angeles Community Redevelopment Agency for several years under Mayor Tom Bradley, where he oversaw the agency’s housing program. Former Gov. Edmund G. Brown Jr. appointed him as a member of the governing board of the Tahoe Regional Planning Agency.
Mr. Hall received his B.A. in 1963 from Yale College and his J.D. magna cum laude in 1966 from Harvard Law School, where he was an editor of the Harvard Law Review.
He has been a member of the adjunct faculty at the University of Southern California Law Center for the past ten years, where he has taught the course in land use law. He is a member of the California Bar and the American Bar Association and is admitted to practice before the U.S. Supreme Court.