Linda Sheehan

Senior Counsel, Leonardo DiCaprio Foundation


Linda Sheehan is Senior Counsel with the Leonardo DiCaprio Foundation (LDF), where she supports LDF initiatives to protect ecosystems and species and build climate resilience. She most recently led Planet Pledge, an LDF project that advanced global investment and philanthropic solutions to climate change. Ms. Sheehan also has taken action for ecosystems and species as Executive Director of Earth Law Center, where she advocated for nature’s rights. Prior to this work, she was Executive Director of the California Coastkeeper Alliance and Pacific Region Director for Ocean Conservancy, where she advanced statutes, policies and litigation to: fund and enforce clean water laws, publicize environmental data, curtail pollution spills, establish marine protected areas, address invasive species, restore waterway flows, and create sustainable water supply strategies. For her efforts “fight[ing] pollution of the Pacific and the streams and rivers that flow into it,” Ms. Sheehan was recognized as a California Coastal Hero by Sunset Magazine and the California Coastal Commission.

Ms. Sheehan holds a B.S. in chemical engineering from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, an M.P.P. from U.C. Berkeley’s Goldman School of Public Policy, and a J.D. from U.C. Berkeley Law School.  She is a member of the IUCN’s World Commission on Environmental Law and was regular Summer Faculty at Vermont Law School, where she developed and taught “Earth Law.” She is a contributing author to Law and Policy for a New Economy (Edward Elgar Publishing 2017), Wild Law in Practice (Routledge 2014), Rule of Law for Nature (Cambridge Univ. Press 2013), Exploring Wild Law: The Philosophy of Earth Jurisprudence (Wakefield Press 2011), and an upcoming book chapter in Environmental Rights: The Development of Standards (Cambridge Univ. Press, 2018).