Biography

Tom Linzey is a cum laude graduate of Widener University School of Law in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, and is a three time recipient of the Schools' Public Interest Law Award, a 2003 recipient of the Law School's Young Alumni Award, a 2003 finalist for the Ford Foundation's Leadership for a Changing World Award, and a 2004 recipient of the Pennsylvania Farmers Union's Golden Triangle Legislative Award.

He has served as an independent candidate for Attorney General, receiving over 65,000 votes statewide, and is the co-founder of the Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund, a nonprofit law firm that provides free and affordable legal services to community groups and over three hundred local governments. He is admitted to practice in federal and state courts, including the Third Circuit, Fourth Circuit, Eighth Circuit, and Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals; and the U.S. Supreme Court. He serves as coordinator of the Franklin County Coalition - a county-based association of twenty-one community groups and over thirty locally owned businesses; and for a Caucus of local governmental officials in Pennsylvania.

He currently serves on the Board of Directors of several nonprofit organizations in Virginia and Pennsylvania, is a frequent lecturer to groups and municipal governments across the United States, and recently delivered speeches to the Bioneers Conference in California and the National Network of Grantmakers conference in Miami.

He is a co-founder of the Daniel Pennock Democracy School - now taught at fifteen locations across the United States - which assists groups and communities to reframe seemingly "single" environmental issues into ones focused on eliminating the ability of corporate "rights" to trump the rights of communities.