Assistant Attorney General - Public Lands & Conservation Division: Olympia, Washington

The State of Washington is currently searching for an Assistant Attorney General for the Public Lands and Conservation Division. The Public Lands and Conservation Division provides a broad spectrum of client advice, dispute resolution, and litigation services to agency clients in legal matters before state and federal courts and administrative tribunals. The division represents the Commissioner of Public Lands, the Department of Natural Resources (DNR), the Board of Natural Resources, the Forest Practices Board, the Department of Fish and Wildlife (WDFW), and the State Parks and Recreation Commission (Parks).

The Assistant Attorney General of this DNR Proprietary Section position represents the Department of Natural Resources (DNR) in its land management planning, transactions, contracts, and other proprietary decisions. DNR manages 5.6 million acres of forest, range, commercial, agricultural, and aquatic lands. Much of this land (3 million acres) is state trust land that provides revenue to help pay for construction of public schools, universities, and other state institutions and funds services in many counties. These lands also provide other public benefits, including outdoor recreation, habitat for native fish and wildlife, and watersheds for clean water. Attorneys in this section primarily represent the following DNR divisions: Recreation and Conservation Division; Product Sales and Leasing Division; Forest Resources Division; and Aquatic Resources Division. Practice areas include real property, contracts, environmental, natural resource, and constitutional law. Legal work may include advice or litigation involving land use agreements and other contracts, real property transactions, valuable materials sales, including timber sales, boundary and ownership disputes, claims arising from the landlord-tenant relationship, special writs reviewing agency action, or compliance with environmental laws including the National and State Environmental Policy Acts (NEPA/SEPA), state and federal cleanup laws (CERCLA and MTCA), the Clean Water Act (CWA), the Endangered Species Act (ESA), and the state Forest Practices Act.

Click here to apply! Applications close April 17, 2025.