Robert H. Thomas

Robert Thomas is Pacific Legal Foundation’s director of its Property Rights practice group. He is an expert on property rights, takings, land use, and eminent domain issues.  

After more than three decades in private practice in Hawaii and California representing property owners in takings, eminent domain, and land use cases, Robert joined PLF’s team of freedom fighters in 2021. 

He has litigated cases in both state and federal court. As counsel for the property owners in County of Hawaii v. C&J Coupe Family Limited Partnership, he helped establish the rule that courts are not mere “rubber stamps” when a local government is taking property by eminent domain. Another case, Hamilton ex rel. Lethem v. Lethem, held that a parent’s liberty interest in raising and disciplining his child included a right to fair procedures, including notice and a judicial hearing before the family court could restrict parent-child contact.  

Robert is a frequent speaker on property rights, takings, land use, and eminent domain issues nationwide. He also regularly publishes scholarly and practical articles in his area of practice, most recently including, “Hoist the Yellow Flag and Spam® Up: The Separation of Powers Limitation on Hawaii’s Emergency Authority”, 43 U. Haw. L. Rev. 71 (2020) and “Evaluating Emergency Takings: Flattening the Economic Curve”, 29 Wm. & Mary Bill Rts. J. 1145 (2021). 

An elected member of the American Law Institute, Robert received his LLM, with honors, from Columbia Law School, where he was a Harlan Fiske Stone Scholar, and his JD from the University of Hawaii School of Law, where he served as editor of the Law Review. He also serves as the inaugural Joseph T. Waldo Visiting Chair in Property Rights Law at William & Mary Law School in Williamsburg, Virginia, where he teaches upper-division courses in eminent domain, land use, property rights, and property law. 

When he’s not working, you might find Robert writing and publishing his blog on land use, property, and takings law, inversecondemnation.com, one of the most widely read blogs on those subjects. 

Robert is a member of the bar only in the states of California and Hawaii.