Lisa K. Friedman

FRIEDMAN: Lisa K. Friedman of Washington, D.C., passed away in August 2024. Lisa was a loving sister, aunt, mentor, teacher, and friend. She devoted her life to advancing the many causes she embraced and enriching the lives of everyone she knew. Lisa left as her legacy a cleaner environment, a more engaged electorate, many computer-savvy seniors, and a very large family of friends and relatives who love and miss her dearly.

Lisa was born and raised in Washington, D.C., to Sanford and Dorothy Friedman. She graduated from Woodrow Wilson High School (now Jackson-Reed High School) and received her A.B. degree from Brown University and her J.D. from Harvard Law School. After working for the law firm of Jones, Day, Reavis and Pogue, she joined the staff of the Office of General Counsel (OGC) of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). For the next 27 years, she served the public with integrity and distinction in a variety of legal leadership positions implementing new statutes designed to protect public health and the environment from pollution, particularly solid and hazardous wastes.

For over 12 years, Lisa served as the Associate General Counsel for OGC's Solid Waste and Emergency Response Division. She was the first woman to become an Associate General Counsel, the top career lawyer in an area of law administered by EPA. Lisa assembled and led a skilled group of lawyers to provide counsel to EPA's fledgling waste programs, including the Superfund cleanup program and programs for underground storage tanks, medical waste, and solid wastes. During her tenure, Lisa oversaw the development and defense of EPA actions that protect the public's health and welfare to this day.

Because of her demonstrated leadership and management skills, Lisa was selected to head a new office within OGC to address a growing list of cross-cutting legal issues arising from diverse laws, including the National Environmental Policy Act, the Endangered Species Act, Indian law, and a host of administrative reform statutes. She also served for a time as Acting Principal Deputy General Counsel, a key position for guiding OGC's support of EPA's implementation of all the federal environmental protection laws that the agency administers.

Later in her EPA career, Lisa served in a particularly challenging position as the Associate General Counsel for Air and Radiation during a difficult period when many of EPA's Clean Air Act authorities and programs were being hotly debated. She was a steadying presence, always providing sound legal advice to agency officials and unwavering support for OGC lawyers.

As an OGC manager, Lisa made morale and mentorship of OGC attorneys a central part of her job. Many of her former colleagues attribute their decision to come to OGC and to remain there to Lisa's dedication to making the office a better place to work. Lisa founded or contributed to dozens of office initiatives designed to make OGC more livable and fun, including Cherry Blossom walks, lunches, high teas, and parties to celebrate births, marriages, departures, and retirements. A renowned baker, she provided sweet treats for all these occasions as well as her weekly staff meetings, which were very well attended!

In addition to her many OGC responsibilities, Lisa led an agency-wide effort to improve the process for developing regulations and other EPA actions, focusing on how scientific, economic and policy analyses are incorporated into agency decision-making. She was also one of OGC's first computer experts, recognizing and applying the capabilities of computers to improve workplace efficiency. In recognition of her many outstanding contributions to EPA, Lisa was awarded the Presidential Meritorious and Distinguished Rank Awards.

As if her EPA workday was not long enough, Lisa also applied her legal skills in the community, serving on the editorial board of the Environmental Law Reporter, chairing an American Bar Association committee, and teaching environmental law at George Washington University law school.

Beyond her legal work, Lisa devoted her intellectual powers and creativity to a wide variety of other activities. She was a volunteer with the Osher Lifelong Learning Institutes (OLLI) and the Washington Metro Oasis, where she taught seniors how to connect to the internet and communicate through email. In a tribute to Lisa that echoes what she meant to the many organizations she served, Oasis' Executive Director wrote that Lisa's "passion for technology and education was truly infectious. . . [S]he transformed the Oasis tech offerings and online class facilitation in ways that . . . not only met the needs of the Oasis community but also inspired and empowered everyone who engaged with it. . . . Her presence in virtual classrooms [left] a lasting impact on everyone who had the pleasure of working with her."

Lisa also promoted civic activism. She served for several years on the leadership council of NOPE, an all-volunteer political organizing group. She also registered voters and organized postcard drives to get out the vote. Through her energy and enthusiasm, she recruited many other volunteers to these activities.

On a more personal level, Lisa was always there for friends in need. She brought soup when someone was ill and cookies when someone was working around the clock. She was also an amazing seamstress. She made innumerable useful and beautiful gifts for her relatives and many friends.

Throughout her life, Lisa organized many groups and gatherings, including an OGC alumni group that met every month at a different local museum, and a book club that met monthly. She was part of a group that baked holiday cookies together annually for over 30 years. For all of these groups, she developed lists and websites full of useful information. Lisa reportedly slept every night, but it is not clear where she found the time!

Lisa was the glue that brought and held many groups of people together. Through her nearly ceaseless efforts to engage her colleagues and friends, she created a large and welcoming family that enriched the lives of its members. Lisa's intellectual prowess, curiosity, enthusiasm, infectious laugh and caring spirit will live on in our memories, and those memories will comfort and inspire her family of friends and relatives even as her presence is greatly missed.

Lisa is survived by her brother, Douglas Fielding of Berkeley, California, her niece Sarah and nephew Paul, and many, many friends. Donations in Lisa's memory can be directed to The Nature Conservancy (nature.org).