Community & Environmental Defense Services (CEDS)
strictly supports citizens and nonprofit
groups concerned about a long list of threats to neighborhoods and the
environment. This specialization has allowed CEDS to achieve the highest
success rate in the nation when it comes to helping people protect their
interests from the impact of sprawl and other issues, such
as those listed along the right-hand column.
We
are a nationwide network of more than 135 attorneys and dozens of other
professionals including planners, environmental scientists, traffic
engineers, political strategists, and fundraisers, to name but a few.
Our clients win 90% of the time, which is a far greater success rate than
citizens usually experience. Our success rate is so unusually high because
of the Politically Oriented Advocacy approach we
developed.
CEDS is designed to serve as a bridge between nonprofits
and for-profits. In other words, we provide a place to refer citizens
who need more help then a nonprofit can provide. We help these
citizens to determine the quickest, least expensive strategy for resolving
their concerns (see Free
Assistance below). When appropriate we then link folks up
with an attorney and other professionals in their area with a good
reputation for winning citizen cases. We also encourage citizens to
fight battles in a way that not only maximizes success but strengthens
public support for responsible growthmanagement and sound
environmental policies (for further detail see
Politically Oriented Advocacy).
If you are concerned about a threat to your home,
neighborhood, or the environment then we would be delighted to provide you
with the following assistance at no cost:
First, contact us at 1-800-773-4571 or Help@ceds.org. After learning the specifics
of your case we can usually suggest a winning strategy.
About half the folks who contact us find that this free advice is all the
help they need to win. We can also do a conference call if you'd like
to include others who share your concerns.
Our free 300-page book, How To Win
Land Development Issues, contains 42 chapters of advice on
winning a wide variety of issues.
Chapter 1 - The Easy
Solution provides step-by-step guidance which allows most of
our clients to win their case without ever having to hire a lawyer or
other professionals.
Finally, we can do a no-cost quick initial review of project plans
for potential impacts as well as possible
equitable
solutions. Just mail the plans to our
contact address and include a cover letter describing your concerns.
We'll then give you a call to discuss the results of our preliminary
review.
About half the folks we help take our free assistance and
manage their own campaign. A small portion of the remainder decide
that there's either too much at risk, the case is too complicated, or too
much time is required, so they hire CEDS to manage the campaign for them.
This is how we stay in business and why we're able to offer so much free help to citizens.
How do
you stop sprawl or other bad development projects? A CEDS Initial Strategy
Analysis is usually the quickest way to get an answer.
As part of the analysis
we will look at technical, legal, and political options for resolving your
concerns. We can usually complete the analysis in one- or two-weeks
regardless of where you are located. For further detail visit our
Initial Strategy Analysis webpage.
These analyses are a key factor allowing 90% of our clients to win their
cases.
A principle component of the Initial Strategy Analysis is
identification of all permits and approvals that must be issued before the
project can proceed. We then focus in on the permit-approval which
offers the best opportunity to win your case. With our nationwide
network of 135 attorneys we can quickly
mobilize a legal team to block issuance of this key permit-approval until
your concerns are resolved. We can also help you with
easy, yet highly-effective fundraising methods.
But the most important service we can provide is to
employ our unique Politically Oriented Advocacy (POA)
approach in support of your goals. When combined with a good legal
strategy, POA triples the likelihood of
success. POA also
greatly reduces the costs of winning a campaign to protect a neighborhood or
the environment.
To learn how CEDS can swiftly set your campaign on the
path to victory, give us a call at 1-800-773-4571 or e-mail us at: Help@ceds.org.
CEDS provides a unique set of services for attorneys
representing clients with concerns about a development project or any other
issue threatening a neighborhood or the environment. We have combined
practices learned from some of the best attorneys in the nation into
an approach we named
Smart Legal
Action. We'd be delighted to speak with you about how this
approach can be applied to your cases. Just give us a call at
1-800-773-4571 or e-mail us at: Help@ceds.org.
Expert Witnesses CEDS has assembled a nationwide network of experts
with qualities most other professionals lack:
extensive experience examining issues from a citizen perspective
(plus our experts do not suffer from the pro-applicant bias so many professionals exhibit);
our experts tend to be less expensive since they are used to working on limited
citizen budgets;
they are known-quantities with a history of providing strong testimony; and
easily qualify as an expert witness.
Following are some of the many expertise within the CEDS network: traffic
engineer, land planner, wetland ecologist, stormwater engineer, real estate
appraiser, hydrogeologist, wastewater engineer, and on the list could go.
So whether you need a PhD or a practitioner we can usually find you the
right expert for the least cost. Just give us a call at 1-800-773-4571
or e-mail us at: Help@ceds.org.
Issue Analysis With most land use or environmental cases there can be
a dozen or more possible technical issues which could form the legal basis
for denying or conditioning a permit or approval. CEDS has become very
efficient at identifying potential issues then singling out the strongest.
For what you might normally pay to analyze just one potential issue,
we can sift through many then line-up a strong expert witness for your
consideration.
But we also provide an extremely important added
service. After determining the decision-making
criteria for the permit-approval at issue we'll research past decisions.
This research frequently reveals ways of structuring testimony and legal
arguments which substantially increases the likelihood of a favorable
decision. To get a better feel for what our issue analysis might
produce for your clients visit our Initial
Strategy Analysis webpage.
Fundraising Funds are usually the factor which most limits the
strength of citizen cases. Raising money is something else CEDS does
very well. In fact, our signature fund-raiser:
nets $3,000 to $30,000 in just one night;
can be held within three-weeks of bringing us
on board; and
CEDS believes that vacant lands within or adjoining a
neighborhood should be used in ways that preserve and enhance quality of
life for you and your neighbors. Proactive Neighborhood Planning (PNP)
allows you to influence how these lands will be used long before a development
company arrives on the scene. Compared to the traditional approach of
waiting until a development proposal has been made, PNP can save
neighborhood residents thousands of dollars while making a successful outcome far more likely.
For further detail visit our Proactive Neighborhood Planning
webpage.
Whether you are concerned about a
single structure proposed for a one-acre lot, a thousand-unit housing
project, a shopping mall, a highway, or growth throughout a town or county, we
can help anywhere in the nation. Just give us a call at 1-800-773-4571 or e-mail us at: Help@ceds.org.
We can assist you in changing the way growth
is managed in your area so residents get more benefits while experiencing
fewer growing pains. This assistance begins with a survey of area
residents and an analysis of past development decisions as well as existing
laws, policies and plans. We will then produce a strategy document
showing how the most harmful growth impacts can be prevented in the future
and how citizen advocacy groups can gain the political clout required to
bring growth management into the 21st century. To see some examples of
what we can help you produce visit the CEDS webpage for our home county:
Baltimore County, MD.
