Stephen Davis is an attorney in Pacific Legal Foundation’s Environment and Natural Resources practice group. Steve represents property owners in defending the use of their property against government overreach. His case work focuses on the U.S. Constitution’s protection of private property rights and property owners’ use of their land and its natural resources for responsible, productive activities, including energy development, mining, homebuilding, and farming.
Beyond litigation, Steve has published articles on property rights, eminent domain, the self-executing nature of the Takings Clause, and the history of federal public lands. He enjoys pursuing constitutional scholarship through research, writing, and speaking at law and legal history seminars. He has also planned, organized, and conducted several PLF conferences, symposia, and academic workshops on property rights and constitutional issues.
Prior to joining PLF, Steve litigated property rights cases against the federal government. In private practice at a national law firm and later at two small, boutique litigation firms, he filed federal takings claims on behalf of hundreds of private property owners in over a dozen states. He also participated in dozens of other cases in the U.S. Supreme Court and other federal and state courts, representing amicus curiae parties, including prominent legal scholars, public-interest groups, and elected officials. Prior to that, from 2006 to 2011, he served as an assistant United States attorney for the Eastern District of Missouri, where he litigated civil rights, constitutional tort, tort, and employment discrimination cases in federal district court and on appeal in the Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals.
Steve began his legal career pursing his passion for public policy and the legislative process by working in the Missouri legislature, where he was twice elected by the members of the House of Representatives as the House’s 62nd chief clerk and administrator. Steve and his wife, Cara, met while they were both working in the U.S. Senate for Senator Orrin Hatch, where they became the “Hatch Match.” They now live in St. Louis and have four children and one grandchild.
Steve is a member of the bar only in the State of Missouri and the District of Columbia.
