Daniel E. Estrin serves as Waterkeeper Alliance’s General Counsel and Legal Director, a role he assumed in January 2016 after representing the organization as outside counsel for many years in numerous lawsuits against polluters and government agencies. In these roles, Daniel oversees all of the Alliance’s respective internal and external legal work.
Daniel was born in New York City and grew up in the Hudson Valley. He has lived almost all of his life within a few miles of the Hudson River estuary, and insists that its waters flow in his veins.
With over 30 years of litigation and environmental law experience, Daniel has spent the majority of his legal career working to protect waterways, ecosystems, and communities from pollution. Before moving in-house at Waterkeeper Alliance, Daniel spent a decade as a clinical law professor at Elisabeth Haub School of Law at Pace University, where he continues to teach doctrinal courses as an Adjunct Professor of Law. Before that, Daniel was Special Counsel to a public interest law firm and worked in private practice. He is admitted to practice before all New York State courts, as well as before the Supreme Court of the United States, the United States Courts of Appeals for the Second, Sixth and Eleventh Circuits, and the United States District Courts for the Southern and Eastern Districts of New York.
Daniel lives in Fairfield County, Connecticut with his family, including Oli, their precocious budgie. In his spare time he enjoys live music, hiking, swimming, paddling, cooking, and visiting national parks across the country.
“As a teenager and young adult I spent many days and nights hiking, fishing, swimming, and floating in and around the streams, swimming holes, and waterfalls of the Catskill Mountains – places like Platte Clove, Peekamoose, and Otter Falls – and I still return to those beautiful and restorative waters whenever I can. Recreating in and around clean, cool natural waters is a tonic for my soul, and I firmly believe that those early experiences were the roots of what has grown into a lifelong passion of environmental conservation and protection.”
