Conservation Law, P.C.
Conservation Law, P.C. is a conservation law firm devoted to protecting working landscapes and environmentally significant lands in Colorado and the Rocky Mountain West, and in ensuring the permanence and perpetual nature of this land conservation.
Jessica Jay, the founding partner of Conservation Law, P.C., is devoted to ensuring the permanence of conservation through sound land conservation transactions and the defense and enforcement of perpetual conservation easements. She and Conservation Law, P.C. represent and partner with land trusts, government entities, and landowners to conserve working landscapes and environmentally significant properties in Colorado and the Rocky Mountain West. Conservation Law, P.C. actively engages conservation professionals, land trusts, and landowners in conservation workshops, and Ms. Jay guides the next generation of land conservationists through her Land Conservation Law courses at the Vermont Law School and the University of Denver's Sturm College of Law.
Conservation Law, P.C. collaborates with the conservation community to develop and implement legal defense and enforcement mechanisms for easement holders, to design and protect conservation easement incentives, and to create enforceable perpetual conservation easements that anticipate changing conditions, climate, and public interests.
DISCLAIMER: The information provided here is general in nature and should not be relied upon as legal advice.
Recent Publications
Harvard Environmental Law Review
As the use of perpetual conservation easements to protect private property for the public’s benefit grows in popularity, so grow the challenges associated with these perpetually binding promises. Today’s conservation community faces significant challenges to amending and terminating perpetual conservation easements in the face of changing conditions, landscapes, climate, and public interests. Because of variations among different legal regimes’ guidance for perpetual conservation easements, much remains unsettled regarding perpetual conservation easement amendment and termination. This Article examines inconsistencies in the legal regimes and explores current and emerging common law, legislation, and policies addressing perpetual easement amendment and termination. This Article posits that the conservation community can protect the integrity of perpetual conservation easements by providing clear, consistent guidance through existing or new legal frameworks for state legislatures, courts, landowners, and easement holders, and suggests the means to achieve or craft such guidance.
Cite as: Jessica E. Jay, When Perpetual is Not Forever: The Challenge of Changing Conditions, Amendment, and Termination of Perpetual Conservation Easements, 36 Harv. Envtl. L. Rev. 1 (2012).
Upcoming Presentations
Virginia Outdoors Foundation Conference
- Conservation Easements and Mineral Development: Not Mutually Exclusive? April 18th, 2012
Symposium on Advanced Legal Topics
- Easement Holders: Risk Management and Sound Decision-making, Charleston, South Carolina, June 11-12, 2012
Vermont Law School
- Land Conservation Law, Summer Session III, South Royalton, Vermont, July 9-22, 2012
- When Perpetual is Not Forever: The Challenge of Changing Conditions, Amendment, and Termination of Perpetual Conservation Easements, CLE Hot Topics Lecture, South Royalton, Vermont, July 2012
