Tony Francois

Tony Francois is experienced in Water and Real Property Law, Land Use and Zoning, Environmental Regulation, Natural Resources Development, Agricultural Law, and Constitutional Law. He has represented homeowners, builders, farmers and ranchers, trade associations, local governments, and water districts in administrative, civil, and criminal proceedings before state and federal administrative agencies and state and federal trial and appellate courts nationwide, including the Supreme Court of the United States and the Supreme Courts of California, Idaho, and Nevada.

Among the notable cases he has litigated, he served as lead counsel for several years for Mike and Chantell Sackett in their long running dispute with the Environmental Protection Agency over whether their vacant home lot is a federally regulated wetlands under the Clean Water Act, and represented John Duarte in a major Clean Water Act enforcement case brought by the Army Corps of Engineers that tested the boundaries of the statute’s permitting exclusion for farming activities.

Tony was an Attorney at the Pacific Legal Foundation from 2012 to 2021. Before that he was a lobbyist for 10 years, first with California Farm Bureau Federation from 2003 to 2007, and then with KP Public Affairs from 2007 to 2012. He was an attorney at McQuaid, Bedford & Van Zandt in San Francisco from 1999 – 2003.

Prior to attending law school, he served as an infantry officer in the United States Army, and was stationed in the former West Germany during the fall of the Berlin Wall.