Free Speech For People is pleased to welcome Shanna Cleveland as Senior Counsel, our newest addition to our Legal Advocacy Program.

Shanna Cleveland is Senior Counsel at Free Speech for People. She previously led the Carbon Asset Risk Initiative at Ceres where she worked with institutional investors to engage with oil and gas companies on the issue of climate risk. Shanna’s work included coordinating a global coalition of investors to file shareholder proposals at major U.S. oil and gas companies resulting in the first majority votes on climate change resolutions at companies like ExxonMobil and Occidental Petroleum.  Prior to her work at Ceres, Shanna served as a Senior Attorney at Conservation Law Foundation in the Climate and Clean Energy Program where she was awarded the Chief Justice Margaret H. Marshall Award for providing access to justice by the Boston Lawyer Chapter of the American Constitution Society for her work with communities to retire coal-fired power plants.

Shanna’s work at Conservation Law Foundation included negotiating the first settlement in the country with a natural gas power plant developer to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in accordance with science-based targets, a landmark decision by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission regarding compensation for coal-fired power plants and system reliability planning, and protecting communities from air pollution by filing citizens suits under the Clean Air Act. Shanna graduated magna cum laude from Harvard; earned her J.D. from the University of Virginia Law School where she served as an Executive Editor for the Virginia Law Review; and received her LL.M. magna cum laude from Vermont Law School.

Welcome, Shanna!