“So much has been destroyed/ I have cast my lot with those /who, age after age, perversely, with no extraordinary power, / reconstitute the world.”   Adrienne Rich

Welcome to the first entry of my new blog, which I have named “Grounded.”  I want to explain the title and what I expect the focus of the blog to be.

In a college commencement speech delivered earlier this summer, the visionary environmental activist and entrepreneur Paul Hawken outlined for the graduates the rather bleak state of the planet, both from an environmental and a social perspective, and why that, ironically, is presents them with an extraordinary opportunity. (click to see the speech in its entirety here).  He told them:  “There is invisible writing on the back of the diploma you will receive, and in case you didn’t bring lemon juice to decode it, I can tell you what it says: YOU ARE BRILLIANT, AND THE EARTH IS HIRING.”  As he does more fully in his most recent book, “Blessed Unrest: How the Largest Movement in the World Came into Being and Why No One Saw It Coming,” he describes how we are in this time at the culmination of a period of social activism that began with the abolition movement two hundred years ago and that there are now thousands of grass roots organizations all over the world that are addressing a variety of important issues including ”climate change, poverty, deforestation, peace, water, hunger, conservation, human rights, and more. This is the largest movement the world has ever seen.” He then encourages the students to participate in this movement. I have seen this movement and it is happening here, in the South Carolina Lowcountry, where there are hundreds of organizations that have sprung up in this place, organically, that are addressing many of the issues Paul has outlined.

Tip O’Neill said, famously, “All politics is local.”  I would take that a step further and say that most of what impacts people’s lives happens on a local level.  Whether it is how we impact the environment or treat our fellow citizens, we affect our fellow human beings and the planet first, and most importantly, in our own back yard.

Grounded is going to be about that kind of local activity in law, government and community.  It will not be parochial; the local issues involved will have national and international implications.  It will also not only be concerned about the locality in which I live and practice law, but how local government, local land use, and local social justice issues get played out throughout this country, and beyond.  Just as Paul Hawken has described the many grassroots environmental and social justice issues located in the Amazon, Africa, the Pacific Islands, Asia and Europe, as well as the United States, issues related to local government and the wise and sustainable use of land play out across national boundaries and have global implications.  The denial of voting rights resonates similarly whether it occurs in the Middle East, Africa, rural South Carolina or the boroughs of New York City.  Likewise, when I travel abroad with my family, I am struck by how often the front pages of the newspapers in Dublin, Quito, Inverness or Vancouver are occupied with zoning or other land use controversies.

Our law firm’s practice, in an exciting and satisfying way, puts us in the middle of many of these issues.  We concentrate on land use and planning law and represent clients who are developers, adjoining landowners, environmental and historic preservation advocacy groups, and local governments.  We act as corporate counsel to local government and come into contact with the wide range of political and legal issues that are worked out daily in local municipal governments across the country.  We are also involved in representing many non-governmental organizations that constitute part of the “Blessed Unrest” described by Paul Hawken.  Specifically, we have helped form and represent Lowcountry Local First, a South Carolina affiliate of BALLE (Business Alliance for a Living Local Economy) that is promoting local retailers and local agriculture in the South Carolina Lowcountry, and is part of a burgeoning movement to promote local economies and local food production and consumption worldwide.

Out of this practice, I hope to bring forward issues that are meaningful and provocative to those who will follow these discussions and participate in them.

I am looking forward to an exploration of issues of Land, Government and Community in this blog.  I hope you will enjoy following it, will engage in a conversation with me through it, and will pass it on to your friends and colleagues.

A new entry to follow soon… ag