After over 20 years of practicing law, joining Rupp Pfalzgraf provided me an opportunity to enhance the services that I offer to my clients. The legal world that we operate in continuously presents opportunities to lawyers and clients alike, and it is our job to capture those moments.

Before moving to Albany, I practiced in New York City having had the opportunity to work on a variety of novel environmental litigation matters. In the first of multiple actions that I conducted in relation to surface mining operations, Moore v. Gottlieb, 848 N.Y.S.2d 328 (2nd Dept. 2007), I successfully represented landowners against a mining company, addressing landslides and runoff originating from the mine. Around the same time, I provided pro bono legal guidance to the Theodore Gordon Flyfishers, Inc. regarding the administrative action Matter of Crossroads Ventures, LLC, which resulted in the positive outcome of approximately 1,200 acres of stream and forest habitat being protected (as Catskill Mountain Forest Preserve land).

In 2011, a different opportunity unfolded when I founded the law firm Tooher & Barone, LLP. For over twelve years we handled matters across the state, maintaining a tradition of counseling a select group of clients with their environmental law and regulatory compliance needs. During those years more opportunities arose for my clients, and I went along for the ride. In the Court of Appeals ruling of Matter of Wallach v Town of Dryden, 23 NY3d 728 (2014), we successfully argued on behalf of various prominent businesses (amicus party) for the home rule land use and zoning rights of Towns prohibiting hydraulic fracturing activities in New York. In a separate administrative appeal before the NYSDEC Commissioner, Matter of Finger Lakes LPG Storage, LLC (2018), we successfully represented the wine and restaurant industries citing community character concerns for the denial of an LPG storage facility proposed for Seneca Lake. These precedent setting cases were incredible wins for clients who worked endlessly to preserve the interests that were most important to them.

Here at Rupp Pfalzgraf, I continue to concentrate on environmental, real estate, contracts, municipal and administrative law; in the form of both litigation and transactional affairs.

I also remain engaged as an active conservationist. At times I have served on multiple nonprofit boards and I authored various articles related to environmental and real property issues. My last piece being the “Rise of Ghosts: The Fight to save the East’s Coastal Forests” (published in 2022 by MeatEater, Inc.), concerning climate change.