Ruth A. Holmes was admitted to the Bar in 1997. Since that time, she has worked in the public and private sectors handling primarily environmental and related litigation matters. She began her career as an Assistant State Attorney in Broward County, later moving into the environmental field. As a young lawyer in private practice, she worked on petroleum cleanup litigation with complex issues surrounding forensic chemistry, geotechnical, and historical land use matters. She continued building on that type of practice and knowledge with other related property damage cases, Clean Water Act matters, and enforcement defense. She spent almost a decade at the South Florida Water Management District working on regulatory issues, including electrical power plant siting, litigating wetland enforcement cases, major construction contract disputes and litigating a successful appeal regarding wetland enforcement at the Florida Supreme Court, among a variety of other water resource matters.
Most recently, Ms. Holmes was in-house counsel with Martin County. While with the County, she continued litigating contract disputes and began litigating land use cases. Over her seven years with the County, she also spent much of her time working closely with technical staff on Lake Okeechobee discharge matters under National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA), the state’s Basin Management Action Plan (BMAP) compliance issues, Underground Injection Control program (UIC), biosolids and associated rulemaking, defending environmental resource permit challenges under the administrative procedure act, polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) investigations and defense, and other wastewater compliance issues surrounding the more recently enacted Clean Waterways Act.
Ms. Holmes has been a panelist for Florida Bar and American Bar Association events on topics ranging from environmental and sustainability matters to computer forensic discovery issues. With Torcivia, Donlon, Goddeau & Rubin, Ms. Holmes continues to represent local governments in litigation, environmental and agricultural land use matters, code enforcement and special district representation. Ms. Holmes is a member of the Environmental and Land Use and the Civil Trial Sections of the Florida Bar, the Southern District of Florida and the Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals.
Education and Background
Ms. Holmes earned her law degree from the University of Miami and her undergraduate degree from Kennesaw State University.
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