He has litigated multiple environmental cases over the past two decades. He began his career with a federal court clerkship, followed by five years as a litigation associate at Tharrington & Smith in Raleigh, North Carolina. In 1993, he became a staff attorney for Earthjustice in Juneau, Alaska, and brought cases to protect Alaska's great rainforests and to conserve the marine resources of the Bering Sea. He returned to North Carolina in 1999 to open the Asheville office of the Southern Environmental Law Center, where he litigated cases involving the forests and biodiversity of the Appalachians, air and water pollution, and transportation and land use.