Earthjustice
U.S. left environmental advocacy
Background
Earthjustice was founded in 1971 as the Sierra Club Legal Defense Fund — a legally independent entity modeled after the NAACP Legal Defense and Education Fund — by Phil Berry, Fred Fisher, and Don Harris to provide free legal representation to environmental causes. Despite sharing early ties with the Sierra Club, it operated as a fully separate organization. In 1997 it rebranded as Earthjustice to reflect a broader mission. Over the following decades it grew into one of the largest environmental law organizations in the United States, expanding from a handful of lawyers to more than 600 full-time staff and 14 regional offices. By fiscal year 2025 it reported revenues exceeding $207 million, almost entirely from donations and foundation grants. Media Bias/Fact Check rates it Left-Center; critics from conservative think tanks characterize it as litigating in service of left-leaning climate and energy policy goals. In 2024 it publicly endorsed Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris. During the Trump administration's second term it has launched an aggressive counter-litigation campaign — with a dedicated tracker of lawsuits against the administration covering areas such as the Endangered Species Act, clean-water rules, frozen federal grants, and Arctic drilling — and created an internal enforcement team to fill what it describes as a gap left by reduced federal environmental enforcement.
Sources
- Earthjustice – Wikipedia
- Earthjustice – InfluenceWatch
- Our Lawsuits Against the Trump Administration – Earthjustice
- Counter/Act Progress Report: Spring 2026 – Earthjustice
- EarthJustice – Bias and Credibility – Media Bias/Fact Check
- Earthjustice Annual Report FY24 (PDF)
- Earthjustice – Nonprofit Explorer – ProPublica
- What You Should Know About Earthjustice – Earthjustice
Profile compiled 2026-07-16; refreshed when ownership, funding, or the administration changes.