BIOGRAPHY OF KAREN BUDD-FALEN

300 East 18th Street • Cheyenne, Wyoming 82001 • (307)632-5105 • karen@buddfalen.com

Karen Budd-Falen is an attorney, and with her husband Frank Falen, is the owner of the Budd-Falen Law Offices, L.L.C. located in Cheyenne, Wyoming. Before moving back to Wyoming, Karen served for three years in the Reagan Administration, U.S. Department of the Interior, Washington, D.C., as a Special Assistant to the Assistant Secretary for Land and Minerals Management. She later served as a law clerk to the Assistant Solicitor for Water and Power. Karen has also worked as an attorney at Mountain States Legal Foundation, a conservative public interest legal foundation in Denver, Colorado.

Karen represents private property owners, ranching and farming organizations, and local governments. Karen has assisted local governments in asserting their rights of cooperation and coordination in federal agency decisions, private property owners in protecting their Constitutionally guaranteed property rights, other multiple users in supporting grazing rights and multiple use on federal/public lands and exposing radical environmental groups’ abuse of the legal system and has worked to expose the abuse of attorney fee shifting statutes.

Karen's most recent publications include The Right to Graze Livestock on the Federal Lands: The Historical Development of Western Grazing Rights, Idaho Law Review, Spring, 1994; Protecting Community Stability and Local Economies: Opportunities for County Government Influence in Federal Decision and Policy Making Processes, Whitman College, 1996; and Counterpoint: Opportunities Lost and Opportunities Gained: Separating Truth from Myth in the Western Ranching Debate, Karen Budd-Falen editor, Lewis and Clark Law School Environmental Law, 2006.

Karen has been featured in Newsweek Magazine's "Who's Who: 20 for the Future" for her work on property rights issues (September 30, 1991). Karen was awarded Wyoming’s Outstanding Ag Citizen in 2001, the “Always There Helping” award from the New Mexico Stock Growers Association in 2003 and the “Bud’s Contract” award from the New Mexico Public Lands Council in 2006. Karen has presented testimony before the U.S. House of Representatives, Subcommittee on Forest Health, Washington, D.C., April 8, 1997, the U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Resources, October 26, 1998, and the U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Resources Task Force on Improving the National Environmental Policy Act, August 1, 2005; and the U.S. House of Representatives Full Committee on Natural Resources Oversight Hearing on “The Endangered Species Act; How Litigation is Costing Jobs and Impeding True Recovery Efforts,” December 6, 2011. Karen has also testified before interim committees of the Wyoming Legislature.

Karen is an active volunteer and mentor for Future Farmers of America (“FFA”) and We the People competitions. Karen grew up as a fifth generation rancher on a family-owned ranch in Big Piney, Wyoming. She received her undergraduate degrees and her law degree from the University of Wyoming. Karen and Frank have two children, Isaac and Sarah.

Admitted to practice law before:

·         State Court of Wyoming

·         U.S. District Courts for Wyoming, Colorado, Nebraska and District of 

          Columbia

·         U.S. Courts of Appeals for the Seventh, Eighth, Ninth, Tenth, District of
          Columbia and Federal Circuits
·         U.S. Court of Federal Claims
·         U.S. Supreme Court

300 East 18th Street • Post Office Box 346 • Cheyenne, Wyoming 82003 -0346
Office: 307-632-5105 • Fax: 307-637-3891 • Email: main@buddfalen.com
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