Jillian Beth Blanchard

Jillian Blanchard is the managing partner of Rudder Law Group and focuses her practice on federal, state and local environmental laws, land use, natural resource permitting and public agency management.

Jillian specializes in managing the environmental review and permitting processes for complex infrastructure, utility, development and redevelopment projects. Jillian has worked with private and public entities to guide development projects through the entitlement process, with a particular focus on federal and state resource agency permitting and the environmental review process. 

Jillian has a specialized expertise in representing clients before a variety of state and federal regulatory agencies, including the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, NOAA Fisheries, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, the State Water Quality Control Board and Regional Water Quality Control Boards, the California Department of Fish and Wildlife, the California Coastal Commission, the California Public Utilities Commission and the San Francisco Bay Conservation and Development Commission and has spent her career building strong relationships with these regulators. In addition, Jillian has represented clients at the local level to manage the environmental review process and to negotiate and draft a myriad of agreements between local municipalities and third parties, including complex settlement agreements, development agreements, option and purchase and sale agreements, memorandums of understanding/agreement, leases and other transactional documents.

When she is not assisting clients, Jillian enjoys a wide variety of outside interests, including rock climbing, SCUBA diving, hiking, running and sailing. In 2002, Jillian and her husband sailed their 35-foot steel cutter-rigged sailboat across the Pacific Ocean to New Zealand, visiting as many intriguing South Pacific islands as possible along the way.