HIGH QUALITY, EFFECTIVE, AND EFFICIENT
LEGAL ADVOCACY

PROMOTING A VIBRANT AND SUSTAINABLE URBAN LANDSCAPE
WHILE PROTECTING THE NATURAL ENVIRONMENT

Holder Law Group specializes in environmental law and land use. Its core goals are to promote and enforce laws protecting the natural environment and open and accountable government, and to provide the highest quality representation at reasonable rates to clients seeking to improve and revitalize neighborhoods or help sustain and protect natural resources.

We serve our clients diligently, responsibly, and with attention and sensitivity to their specific needs and objectives.

Update: WPLG's Paul Kibel and Jason Holder of Holder Law Group have launched Record Strength, a set of services (including strategic counsel and serving as counsel of record) focused on ensuring clients participate effectively and preserve their rights in administrative agency proceedings. Click
here for additional information on Record Strength.

Learn more

Practice

Environmental Review and Related Litigation

REPRESENTATIVE MATTERS

⇛ Provide advice concerning CEQA and NEPA compliance to public agencies and private clients on a wide range of large and small projects throughout the state.

⇛ Guide and assist project proponents through the environmental clearance process and in litigation defending environmental clearance documents.

⇛ Actively participate in the administrative process on behalf of project opponents, from preparing detailed comments to participating in public hearings; if necessary and desired, challenge agency approvals and environmental clearance documents through litigation.

Land Use Permitting and Entitlements

REPRESENTATIVE MATTERS

⇛ Advise public, private and nonprofit clients regarding requirements for obtaining development entitlements in various California jurisdictions.

⇛ Assist clients in obtaining land use approvals, permits and other entitlements.

⇛ Oppose land use approvals, permits and other entitlements on behalf of impacted individuals, businesses, and local agencies.

Water Rights Due Diligence and Dispute Resolution

REPRESENTATIVE MATTERS

⇛ Assist in due diligence, negotiations, and drafting agreements for water transfers.

⇛ Advocate for client in water rights dispute, including research on relative superiority of competing water rights.

⇛ Assist public utility in building leverage for negotiations with water users and competing public utilities.

Dispute Resolution

REPRESENTATIVE MATTERS

⇛ Assist in due diligence, negotiations, and drafting agreements for water transfers.

⇛ Advocate for client in water rights dispute, including research on relative superiority of competing water rights.

⇛ Assist public utility in building leverage for negotiations with water users and competing public utilities.

Principal attorney Jason Holder assists a wide range of clients in cases concerning compliance with environmental statutes, including the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA), the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA), the Clean Water Act, and state and federal Endangered Species Acts.

He has helped public agencies and private clients comply with these laws. Conversely, he has helped project opponents and concerned citizens meaningfully participate in the environmental review process and in litigation to minimize and mitigate project impacts. These divergent experiences provide a balanced perspective and keen insights into opposing strategies. Holder Law Group strives to provide efficient and effective advocacy to address client needs.

About

Jason W Holder

Attorney at Law

Jason earned a J.D. in 2004 from U.C. Hastings College of the Law. There he focused environmental and water law. He spent his first summer as a judicial extern for a senior federal district court judge in Oakland and was a summer associate at a prominent Sacramento law firm during his second summer. Jason also was a Legal Writing and Research teaching assistant. During his third year, he was editor-in-chief of the Hastings West-Northwest Journal of Environmental Law and Policy.

In 1997, Jason received a B.A.in geography (major) and philosophy (minor) from San Francisco State University, graduating magna cum laude.  While studying geography at SFSU, Jason was first introduced to CEQA and an EIR in a course on environmental impact analysis.  This introduction inspired Jason to become an environmental attorney with a focus on CEQA.

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Experience

  • Principal, Holder Law Group (Feb. 2014 to present)
  • Fitzgerald Abbott & Beardsley LLP, Oakland, California (Sept. 2011 to Feb. 2014):  Associate in the Land Use, Environment & Natural Resources practice group
  • Adams, Broadwell, Joseph & Cardozo, P.C., South San Francisco, California (March 2010 to Aug. 2011):  Associate
  • Remy Moose Manley LLP, Sacramento, California (Sept. 2006 to March 2010):  Associate
  • Downey Brand LLP, Sacramento, California (Aug. 2004 to Dec. 2005): Associate in the Land Use practice group
  • Thelen Reid & Priest LLP, San Francisco, California (1998 to 2001):  Paralegal in the Complex Commercial Litigation and Construction Defect Litigation Practice Groups
  • Gordon & Rees LLP, San Francisco, CA (1997 to 1998):  Paralegal in the Personal Injury Defense Practice Group

Awards / Community Service

  • Rising Star in Env. Litigation, 2009 and 2010
  • ACBA, Env. Law Section, Exec. Committee, Member (2012-2013), Secretary (2014)
  • Sacramento County Bar Association, Env. Law Section, Exec. Committee, Member (2008)

“An EIR is an ‘environmental alarm bell’ whose purpose it is to alert the public and its responsible officials to environmental changes before they have reached ecological points of no return.”

LAUREL HEIGHTS IMPROVEMENT ASSN. V. REGENTS OF UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA (1988)

“The EIR is also intended “to demonstrate to an apprehensive citizenry that the agency has, in fact, analyzed and considered the ecological implications of its action.”

Laurel Heights Improvement Assn. v. Regents of University of California (1988)

“Courts do not substitute their judgment for that of the people and their local representatives.  They can and must, however, scrupulously enforce all legislatively mandated CEQA requirements.” 

Al Larson Boat Shop, Inc. v. Board of Harbor Commissioners (1993)

“CEQA requires that the preparers of the EIR conduct the investigation and obtain documentation to support a determination of pre-existing conditions. This is a crucial function of the EIR.”

Save Our Peninsula Com. v. Monterey County Bd. of Supervisors (2001)

“It is the intent of the Legislature that all agencies of the state government which regulate activities ... which are found to affect the quality of the environment, shall regulate such activities so that major consideration is given to preventing environmental damage....”

Laurel Heights Improvement Assn. v. Regents of University of California (1988)

“The foremost principle under CEQA is that the Legislature intended the act “to be interpreted in such manner as to afford the fullest possible protection to the environment within the reasonable scope of the statutory language.” 

Laurel Heights Improvement Assn. v. Regents of University of California (1988)

“To achieve that maximum protection the Legislature necessarily intended to include within the operation of the act, private activities for which a government permit or other entitlement for use is necessary.”

Friends of Mammoth v. Board of Supervisors (1972)

“A legally adequate EIR . . . must contain sufficient detail to help ensure the integrity of the process of decisionmaking by precluding stubborn problems or serious criticism from being swept under the rug.”

Kings County Farm Bureau v. City of Hanford (1990)

“It is improper to defer the formulation of mitigation measures until after project approval; instead, the determination of whether a project will have significant environmental impacts, and the formulation of measures to mitigate those impacts, must occur before the project is approved.”

California Native Plant Soc. v. City of Rancho Cordova (2009)

“NEPA announced a national policy of environmental protection and placed a responsibility upon the Federal Government to further specific environmental goals by “all practicable means, consistent with other essential considerations of national policy.” 

Kleppe v. Sierra Club (1976)

“One major purpose of an EIR is to inform other government agencies, and the public generally, of the environmental impact of a proposed project [citations], and to demonstrate to an apprehensive citizenry that the agency has in fact analyzed and considered the ecological implications of its action.”

No Oil, Inc. v. City of Los Angeles (1974)

 “The purpose of CEQA is not to generate paper, but to compel government at all levels to make decisions with environmental consequences in mind.  CEQA does not, indeed cannot, guarantee that these decisions will always be those which favor environmental considerations.”

Laurel Heights Improvement Assn. v. Regents of University of California (1988)

“The critical question of ‘standing' would be simplified and also put neatly in focus if we fashioned a federal rule that allowed environmental issues to be litigated...in the name of the inanimate object about to be despoiled, defaced, or invaded by roads and bulldozers and where injury is the subject of public outrage.”

Sierra Club v. Morton (1972)

“The data in an EIR must not only be sufficient in quantity, it must be presented in a manner calculated to adequately inform the public and decision makers, who may not be previously familiar with the details of the project.  Information ‘scattered here and there in EIR appendices’ is not a substitute for ‘a good faith reasoned analysis….”

Vineyard Area Citizens for Responsible Growth, Inc. v. City of Rancho Cordova (2007)

Address

317 Washington St, #177
Oakland, CA 94607
(By appointment only)

Contact Us

Email us
[email protected]

Phone
(510) 338-3759