Senior Vice President and Litigation Director, Institute for Justice
Dana Berliner serves as Senior Vice President and Litigation Director at the Institute for Justice, where she has worked as a lawyer since 1994.
The focus of Dana’s litigation at IJ has been property rights. She successfully represented the Community Youth Athletic Center, a boxing gym and mentoring program for at-risk youth, which challenged the city of National City’s authorization of taking the CYAC’s property for private development; the California Court of Appeal ruled in 2013 that the authorization of eminent domain was invalid and that National City had violated California’s Public Records Act. Dana also represented the home and business owners in Norwood, Ohio, who, on July 26, 2006, secured a unanimous ruling from the Ohio Supreme Court that the city could not take their property for a privately owned shopping mall and “lifestyle center.” Along with co-counsel Scott Bullock, she represented the homeowners in Kelo v. New London, in which the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that cities could condemn property because other uses may produce an increase in tax dollars and jobs. Dana, along with many others at IJ, worked to turn the nationwide outrage caused by the decision into new state statutes, constitutions and judicial decisions that cut back on eminent domain abuse. She secured a ruling that the Village of Port Chester, N.Y., violated due process in its use of eminent domain to secure waterfront property. Since 2008, Dana has been recognized every year as a “Best Lawyer” in eminent domain and condemnation law by the publication Best Lawyers in America.
On issues of free speech and economic liberty, Dana successfully defended Carla Main and Encounter Books, who wrote and published a book about eminent domain abuse in Texas and across the country, against a defamation suit brought by a developer who stood to receive property taken by eminent domain. She secured a victory in favor of two New Orleans entrepreneurs in a federal First Amendment challenge to the city of New Orleans’ ban on sidewalk book vending. As trial counsel, Dana also secured a ruling that the Nevada Transportation Services Authority violated the rights of several would-be limousine entrepreneurs by subjecting them to an onerous and arbitrary licensing process that gave undue power to existing companies opposing competition. And she successfully represented an aspiring teacher of African hair braiding in Mississippi, as well as two of her students, challenging restrictions on learning and teaching African hair braiding in Mississippi.
In 2012, Dana became IJ’s Litigation Director. She now oversees all of IJ’s litigation, helping other attorneys craft both their major legal theories and their day-to-day litigation strategies. And she helps to set the litigation directions that IJ will take. In 2016, Dana began her role as IJ’s Senior Vice President.
Dana authored Opening the Floodgates: Eminent Domain Abuse in the Post-Kelo World, a report on the use and threatened use of eminent domain for private development in the year since the Kelo decision. Dana also authored Public Power, Private Gain: A Five-Year, State-by-State Report Examining the Abuse of Eminent Domain, the first-ever nationwide study on the abuse of eminent domain, released in 2003.
Dana has been quoted in The New York Times, USA Today, Wall Street Journal, NPR and The Washington Post as well as on various radio and television broadcasts, including 60 Minutes.
Dana received her law and undergraduate degrees from Yale University where she was a member of the Yale Law Journal and represented clients through the legal services program. After law school, she clerked for Judge Jerry Smith on the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.
Dana Berliner is a member of the DC and Pennsylvania bars.
Partner, Marzulla Law
Ms. Marzulla served as an Attorney-Advisor and as a trial lawyer prosecuting employment violations in the Civil Rights Division at the U.S. Department of Justice. Later, Nancie joined the law firm of Verner, Liipfert (now DLA Piper), where she litigated complex airline and other civil matters. In 1991, She founded Defenders of Property Rights, where she was involved in high profile takings cases in the Supreme Court, federal courts of appeal, and trial courts. Ms. Marzulla also worked at the International Labor Organization in Geneva, Switzerland doing comparative legal research.
Nancie G. Marzulla is a founding partner of Marzulla Law, ranked as one of the nation’s “Best Law Firms,” and a “Tier One” environmental litigation firm by the U.S. News and World Report. Nancie’s litigation practice concentrates on water rights, takings, and contract claims in the U.S. Court of Federal Claims. She also has extensive experience in handling matters involving property, water, environmental law, Indian tribal claims, development, and natural resources in trial courts, courts of appeal, the Supreme Court, and in international tribunals. Nancie also represents corporate clients in enforcement or permitting disputes with federal regulatory agencies.
Partner, Marzulla Law
Roger J. Marzulla is one of the nation’s leading environmental, water, and property lawyers. As Assistant Attorney General in charge of the U.S. Justice Department’s Environment and Natural Resources Division, Roger learned first hand the operations and litigation styles of his client agencies: EPA, Interior Department, Bureau of Reclamation, Fish and Wildlife Service, National Marine Fisheries Service, Department of Transportation, Department of Commerce. In 1997, he co-founded Marzulla Law, where he brings to bear more than 35 years of expertise representing companies and individuals in industries as diverse as land and project development, aerospace, chemicals, oil and gas, mining, timber, manufacturing, computers, agriculture and water service.
Roger began his legal career as a trial lawyer in San Jose, California, after graduating magna cum laude from the University of Santa Clara School of Law. As a partner in Matthews & Marzulla he represented developers, title and construction companies, shopping centers, apartment owners and lenders in litigation throughout California. In 1981 he moved to Denver to become President of Mountain States Legal Foundation, litigating environmental and natural resource cases across the West.
In 1983 Roger joined the Justice Department as Special Litigation Counsel. He was subsequently promoted to Deputy Assistant Attorney General and, in 1987, was confirmed by the Senate as Assistant Attorney General in charge of the Environment and Natural Resources Division. At the Justice Department, Roger helped create litigation strategies for government programs as diverse as Superfund, the Clean Air Act, off-shore oil leasing, environmental crimes, federal facility clean-up, wetlands, endangered species and hazardous waste enforcement, as well as Presidential Order EO 12,630 (Government Interference with Private Property Rights).
In 1989 Roger returned to private law practice, successively heading the environmental law practices of the Powell, Goldstein and Akin, Gump law firms.
Since 1997, as a partner in Marzulla Law, Roger has continued to represent corporate and business clients in a wide array of environmental and property issues in courts across the country, frequently in litigation against the United States. He also assists clients in attaining compliance with environmental, health and safety regulation, and in avoiding risks in transactions.
Partner, Marzulla Law
Ms. Marzulla served as an Attorney-Advisor and as a trial lawyer prosecuting employment violations in the Civil Rights Division at the U.S. Department of Justice. Later, Nancie joined the law firm of Verner, Liipfert (now DLA Piper), where she litigated complex airline and other civil matters. In 1991, She founded Defenders of Property Rights, where she was involved in high profile takings cases in the Supreme Court, federal courts of appeal, and trial courts. Ms. Marzulla also worked at the International Labor Organization in Geneva, Switzerland doing comparative legal research.
Nancie G. Marzulla is a founding partner of Marzulla Law, ranked as one of the nation’s “Best Law Firms,” and a “Tier One” environmental litigation firm by the U.S. News and World Report. Nancie’s litigation practice concentrates on water rights, takings, and contract claims in the U.S. Court of Federal Claims. She also has extensive experience in handling matters involving property, water, environmental law, Indian tribal claims, development, and natural resources in trial courts, courts of appeal, the Supreme Court, and in international tribunals. Nancie also represents corporate clients in enforcement or permitting disputes with federal regulatory agencies.
Partner, Marzulla Law
Ms. Marzulla served as an Attorney-Advisor and as a trial lawyer prosecuting employment violations in the Civil Rights Division at the U.S. Department of Justice. Later, Nancie joined the law firm of Verner, Liipfert (now DLA Piper), where she litigated complex airline and other civil matters. In 1991, She founded Defenders of Property Rights, where she was involved in high profile takings cases in the Supreme Court, federal courts of appeal, and trial courts. Ms. Marzulla also worked at the International Labor Organization in Geneva, Switzerland doing comparative legal research.
Nancie G. Marzulla is a founding partner of Marzulla Law, ranked as one of the nation’s “Best Law Firms,” and a “Tier One” environmental litigation firm by the U.S. News and World Report. Nancie’s litigation practice concentrates on water rights, takings, and contract claims in the U.S. Court of Federal Claims. She also has extensive experience in handling matters involving property, water, environmental law, Indian tribal claims, development, and natural resources in trial courts, courts of appeal, the Supreme Court, and in international tribunals. Nancie also represents corporate clients in enforcement or permitting disputes with federal regulatory agencies.
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