Tom Dawson

Florence Township Memorial High School

Class of 1967

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Tom Dawson - Class of 1967 - Florence Township Memorial High School

First Name	Tom
Last Name	Dawson
Graduation Year	Class of 1967
Gender	Male
Current Location	Madison, Wisconsin USA
Relationship Status	Married
About Me	Tom Dawson Degrees: B.A., Rutgers University with Honors J.D., Howard University School of Law, Magna Cum Laude Teaching and Research Interests: Environmental Law & Practice Tom Dawson recently retired as an Assistant Attorney General (AAG) and Director of the Environmental Protection Unit in the Wisconsin Department of Justice (WDOJ). He had been an AAG since September 1976, and Unit Director since August 2003. As Director of the Environmental Protection Unit, Dawson supervised nine attorneys, two paralegals, three secretaries, and two to three legal externs. The Environmental Protection Unit enforced state environmental laws. and represented the State and the Department of Natural Resources in environmental and natural resource related lawsuits. For most of his WDOJ career, Dawson served for 19 years as a Public Intervenor (1976-1995) -- an assistant attorney general charged with the duty to advocate the protection of public rights in the waters and other natural resources of the state. See Wis. Stat. § 165.07 (1995). He shared that position with other Assistant Attorneys General until the office was abolished in the 1995 budget law. From 1995 to 1997, Dawson served as an assistant attorney general in the DOJ Civil Litigation Unit. From 1997 through 2000, Dawson took a three-year leave of absence to serve as Director of the Wisconsin Strategic Pesticide Information Project, a non-profit group formed to enact legislation to create a pesticide sales and use tracking system in Wisconsin. In November 2000, Dawson returned to the DOJ Civil Litigation Unit. He was appointed Director of the Environmental Protection Unit in August, 2003. Dawson has extensive experience in federal and state judicial, administrative, legislative, and other advocacy forums. As Public Intervenor, Dawson advocated the protection of Wisconsin's natural resources in federal and state forums, including in court cases, agency rule-making and trial proceedings, and in legislative committee hearings. Dawson lobbied legislators and agency officials, and worked with coalition groups and with industry, to forge consensus environmental legislation and administrative regulations, including numerous pesticide regulations and the landmark 1983 Wisconsin Groundwater Protection Law, 1983 Wis. Act 410. The Public Intervenor office was involved in many environmental issues and cases including navigable waters public trust, groundwater, pesticides, toxic substances, land use, mining, wetlands, solid waste, environmental nuisances, and environmental impact assessments. During the Spring of 2001, Dawson was part of the negotiating team that helped enact the Wisconsin Isolated Wetlands Protection Law to fill the federal regulatory gap left by the U.S. Supreme Court decision in Solid Waste Agency of Northern Cook County v. Army Corps of Engineers, 531 U. S. 159 (2001). Dawson successfully argued the U.S. Supreme Court case holding that the federal pesticide law does not preempt local regulation of pesticide use. Wisconsin Public Intervenor v. Mortier, 501 U.S. 597, 111 S.Ct. 2476, 115 L.Ed.2d 532 (1991). Dawson currently teaches Environmental Law as adjunct faculty at the University of Wisconsin Law School. He was awarded the 2008 Warren H. Stopler Adjunct Professor of the Year Award for his work and dedication as an adjunct professor at the UW Law School. Dawson has also taught courses sponsored by University of Wisconsin Extension, given numerous guest lectures and talks in policy forums, classes and at state and national conferences on many topics including groundwater, pesticides, wetlands, environmental law enforcement, and the environmental impact statement law. Dawson is author of numerous articles and papers. Dawson served for ten years on the Dane County Parks Commission. Dawson graduated with honors from Rutgers University Camden College of Arts and Sciences in 1971. Dawson received his Juris Doctor degree, graduating Magna Cum Laude from Howard University School of Law, Washington, D.C., in 1975. He grew up in southern New Jersey where he worked in hospitals and a steel mill while attending college. Dawson has a son, Matt, by his previous marriage with Eileen Potts Dawson, and is married to Mary Rose Teves originally of Honolulu, the Bureau of Financial Assistance Director...(read more)