Wednesday, Oct. 16 | Noon to 1 p.m. CST | Zoom ID:  977 5557 6923 | YouTube Recording

During the second webinar, join environmental litigators and advocates in a discussion about how legal practitioners have litigated cases against industrial agriculture from North Carolina to Iowa.

Shannon Roesler, Moderator

Professor Roesler’s scholarship focuses on issues of environmental justice, environmental governance, climate change litigation, energy law and policy, and land use. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in edited volumes and law journals such as the Georgetown Law Journal, the Florida Law Review, and the U.C. Davis Law Review. She also currently serves on the board of the Environmental Law Collaborative.  

Prior to joining the faculty at Iowa Law in 2021, Professor Roesler was the Robert S. Kerr, Jr. Professor of Natural Resources and Environmental Law at Oklahoma City University School of Law where she received the Outstanding Faculty Award in 2019. After law school, she clerked on the United States Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit and worked as a staff attorney and teaching fellow in the International Women’s Human Rights Clinic at the Georgetown University Law Center. She was also a visiting faculty member at the University of Kansas School of Law.  

John Lande, Panelist

John Lande is a shareholder with a civil litigation practice at the Dickinson Bradshaw Law Firm in Des Moines. He has experience with matters involving banking and financial regulation, cybersecurity, local government, and environmental claims. John represented the Des Moines Water Works in a lawsuit against drainage districts in Northwest Iowa over nitrate pollution.

Michael Schmidt, Panelist

Michael Schmidt joined the Council in 2019 and works across IEC's program areas. He most recently worked as a staff attorney for the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency, where he focused on clean water and mining issues. He previously worked for the Minnesota Center for Environmental Advocacy, a state-based nonprofit, where he engaged in legal, legislative, and policy advocacy on water quality issues. He has a law degree from the University of Minnesota and a B.A. in political science from the University of Iowa.

Daniel Wallace, Panelist

Daniel concentrates his practice on workers’ compensation, personal injury, and civil litigation. He earned an undergraduate degree from North Carolina State University and a J.D. from the Charlotte School of Law. Daniel’s legal experience began in 2008 and continued through various summer clerkships while in law school. He was admitted to the North Carolina State Bar in 2013 and is a member of American Association for Justice.

Active in the community, Daniel serves in leadership roles on numerous boards and organizations including the Rowan County Literacy Council and Salisbury Police Foundation.

Mark Doby, Panelist

After graduating from high school in Rowan County, Mark earned his Bachelor of Arts degree from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in 2006 followed by his law degree from Campbell University in 2009.  He joined Wallace & Graham in September 2009 shortly after being admitted to the North Carolina State Bar.

Since then, he has represented hundreds of workers who have developed a cancer or other illness related to benzene, asbestos, noise, and other toxic exposures at work.  For these individuals, he has achieved favorable outcomes at the North Carolina Industrial Commission, North Carolina state courts, as well as various federal courts.

In addition, from 2013-2020, he was deeply immersed in the firm’s swine nuisance litigation against Smithfield Hog Production, where the firm represented more than 500 eastern North Carolina residents in their fight against the world’s largest hog producer.  This team tried and won five federal jury trials in Raleigh in 2018-19, amassing more than $550 million in verdicts.  Smithfield appealed the verdicts, but lost, and then finally settled with all our plaintiffs.  For his work in this litigation, Mark was among the team that was named Public Justice’s 2020 Trial Lawyer of the Year.

Active in the community, Mark serves in leadership roles on numerous boards and organizations including as Past President of the Rowan County Bar (District 19-C), Vice President of the Meals On Wheels Rowan board, and most recently joined the Novant Health Foundation board.  He previously served on the North Carolina Bar Association's Wills For Heroes committee, traveling all over North Carolina to draft free estate-planning documents for firefighters and other first responders.

He has done pro bono work, both legally and politically, for Partners In Learning, a five-star nationally-accredited childcare center in Salisbury. Most significantly, in 2021 he initiated and led the effort which secured nearly $5 million in funds from the 2021-22 state budget.  Those funds helped build Partners’ new state-of-the-art $12 million facility which opened in October 2023, greatly expanding and improving childcare services in Rowan County for decades to come.

Mark lives in Salisbury with his wife Allison, two children Cate and Myers, and dog Drew.  Whenever humanly possible, they all enjoy traveling, attending Tar Heels sporting events, or most any other outdoor activity with family or friends.