Paul is a partner at Pierson Ferdinand LLP, where he focuses on land use and environmental issues. He represents clients before cities, counties, and state agencies in California, as well as in litigation implicating the right to use, develop, or lease property.
From 2003 to 2014, he was an attorney with Pacific Legal Foundation, where he led PLF’s Coastal Land Rights Project, overseeing and conducting litigation against the California Coastal Commission.
In 2023, he successfully petitioned the U.S. Supreme Court for review of an important land use and property rights case, Sheetz v. El Dorado County. In 2013, he successfully argued Koontz v. St. Johns River Water Management District in the Supreme Court. Both Sheetz and Koontz concern the limits that the federal Constitution imposes on governments that seek to impose onerous conditions on the right of a landowner or developer to use and improve private property.
