Jess Phelps

Jess joined Lyme in 2019 and serves as associate general counsel to the firm. Prior to joining Lyme, Jess most recently worked for a leading Vermont law firm in its real estate and environment practice groups. Before that, he served as an Attorney-Advisor in the USDA’s Office of General Counsel, Natural Resources and Environment Division, in Washington, D.C., where he advised NRCS and the Forest Service on various issues, including conservation easement transactions, and with Historic New England, the nation’s oldest and largest regional heritage organization, as Team Leader for Preservation Services. Jess frequently writes on conservation easement-related topics with representative articles appearing in the Harvard Environmental Law Review, Ecology Law Quarterly (at the University of California-Berkeley), N.Y.U. Environmental Law Journal, Virginia Environmental Law Journal, and the Duke Environmental Law & Policy Forum. He also serves as an adjunct professor at the Vermont Law School and is on the Board of Trustees of the Vermont Land Trust. Jess earned a J.D. from Drake University Law School (with highest honors and service as Editor-in-Chief of the Drake Law Review) and a B.S. from Iowa State University.