In Memorium (August 10, 1967 - October 29, 2025)

Paul Stanton Kibel is Water and Natural Resource Counsel at the WATER AND POWER LAW GROUP PC.  He is a tenured Professor at Golden Gate University School of Law, where he teaches Water Law and California Environmental & Natural Resources Law, and co-directs the GGU Center on Urban Environmental Law (CUEL).  He is also a Visiting Professor in Water Law at Boalt Hall Law School, University of California at Berkeley. Prior to joining the Water and Power Law Group, Paul was a partner with the water and natural resource practice group at Fitzgerald Abbott & Beardsley LLP and worked for the California State Coastal Conservancy’s Office of Counsel and Sierra Club Legal Defense Fund.  He previously co-chaired the Natural Resources Subsection of the California State Bar Real Property Section and presently serves as a faculty advisor to the California Water Law Symposium.  His publications include the books  Rivertown: Rethinking Urban Rivers (MIT Press, 2007) and Riverflow: The Right to Keep Water Instream (Cambridge University Press, forthcoming 2020) and articles on water law in the Stanford Environmental Law Journal, Ecology Law Quarterly, Virginia Environmental Law Journal and Berkeley Journal of International Law. Paul is a member of the International Association of Water Lawyers (AIDA), and served as a co-author for the Greening of Water Law guidebook AIDA prepared for the United Nations Environment Programme.

He holds a LL.M. from Boalt Hall Law School, University of California at Berkeley (1999) and a B.A. from Colgate University (1989). Paul’s water  and natural resource law experience includes groundwater rights adjudication, water supply contract negotiations, water supply due diligence for the purchase of land and other facilities, compliance with California SB 221 and SB 610 water supply requirements, water resource analysis under the California Environmental Quality Act and National Environmental Policy Act, instream fisheries protection under the Endangered Species Act, California reasonable use law and public trust law, water rights and water infrastructure reservations in land sale agreements, streambed alteration agreements, conjunctive use contractual arrangements for groundwater aquifer management and supply, climate adaptation law and policy in the water resource sector, Law of the River (Colorado), United States-Mexico cross-border waters and other transnational watercourses, and application of NAFTA and WTO rules to water resources.