BILD Board Spotlight: Jennifer Hernandez

West Coast Land Use and Environmental Group Leader Jennifer Hernandez was profiled in Southern California Builder magazine's BILD Board Spotlight. She talked about her path to a legal career, specifically what led to Holland & Knight's 2015 study In the Name of the Environment, which examined lawsuits filed under the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) and discussed how litigation abuse was worsening the state's housing crisis. She also described her current work as legal counsel to the Building Industry Legal Defense Foundation and The Two Hundred, which advocate for building housing and increasing homeownership.

"I decided that to effectively advocate for housing – and the families, workers, builders and employers who depended on housing – we needed to peel back the curtain on CEQA's status quo defenders, and the abuse of CEQA for non-environmental purposes," Ms. Hernandez said of getting into CEQA litigation. "...[In the Name of the Environment] changed the debate. Our research methods were simple, and our factual conclusions have never been challenged."

READ: BILD Board Spotlight: Jennifer Hernandez (Story begins on page 21)