Mark C. Rutzick

Mark C. Rutzick

Mark C. Rutzick is an experienced federal litigator who has handled more than 300 federal district court cases in 25 districts throughout the country since 1975, and has argued more than 40 appeals in seven federal appellate circuits. He has been principal attorney of record in more than 100 officially reported decisions in federal and state courts.

As a career staff attorney and career Senior Executive Service attorney in the Civil Division of the U.S. Department of Justice from 1978 to 1986, and in private law practice since 1986, Mark has primarily litigated cases involving judicial review of administrative action under the Administrative Procedure Act. He has broad experience with the legal standards for judicial review actions, including content and composition of an administrative record, provision for extra-record discovery and supplementation, presumptions and standards of review, and rules for judicial evaluation of federal agency interpretations of statutes, regulations and other regulatory actions under Chevron, U.S.A., Inc. v. Natural Res. Def. Council, Inc., 467 U.S. 837 (1984).

For more than two decades Mark’s principal practice area has been in the field of natural resources, where he has developed a national reputation for expertise in the Endangered Species Act, the National Environmental Policy Act and public land management laws including the National Forest Management Act, Multiple Use-Sustained Yield Act and Federal Land Policy & Management Act. He has represented industry interests for a quarter-century on high-profile natural resource disputes such as the ongoing controversy over conservation of the threatened northern spotted owl in the Pacific Northwest. He has written and spoken widely on natural resource issues throughout the country. For many years his practice was based in Portland, Oregon; since 2007 he has been based in the Washington, DC area.

From 2003 to 2005 Mark served as an appointee in the Administration of President George W. Bush in Washington, DC in the position of Senior Advisor to the General Counsel, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, U.S. Department of Commerce. Mark advised the NOAA General Counsel and senior staff on Endangered Species Act issues and other resource issues of national or regional importance including: Federal Columbia River Power System; dolphin protection measures in Eastern Pacific Ocean; Snake River Basin water rights adjudication; counterpart consultation rules for EPA pesticides and Healthy Forest restoration projects; ESA interpretative issues relating to salmonid listing determinations, jeopardy standard, and designation of critical habitat; and National Environmental Policy Act.

He obtained his B.A. in Economics from the University of Michigan and his J.D., cum laude, from Harvard Law.

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