Andrew Hursh

Andrew joined Advocates for the West in May 2024. He pursued a public-interest law career following an academic and professional background in natural resource science and policy, including global climate change modeling and carbon cycle research. Andrew has a varied history working in and around western federal lands, including trail and restoration work, preparing monitoring data for wilderness areas, guiding backcountry and river trips, and working with multi-interest collaboratives.

Andrew grew up in Kansas City and attended the University of Montana for an undergraduate degree in natural resource conservation and a master’s degree in systems ecology, with an additional program training in facilitating natural resource conflict resolution. Andrew received his law degree from Vermont Law School, where he served as an articles editor on the Vermont Law Review. Andrew spent a year clerking for Chief Justice Mike McGrath on the Montana Supreme Court, and prior to joining Advocates for the West litigated cases on public lands administration for a small nonprofit conservation group.

Andrew lives in Missoula, Montana, or else is somewhere around the West pursuing all modes of outdoor exploration. Andrew is thrilled to work defending wild places, serving human communities’ relationships with the natural world, and seeking justice at the intersection of law, ecology, and humility toward the earth and each other.