Southern Environmental Law Center names Mary Maclean Asbill new director of North Carolina offices

CHAPEL HILL, N.C. — The Southern Environmental Law Center named longtime senior attorney Mary Maclean Asbill its new North Carolina offices director to lead its legal and policy work throughout the state. SELC has offices in Asheville and Chapel Hill in North Carolina. She succeeds Derb Carter who will continue as senior advisor and senior attorney.

“I’m honored to take on the leadership of our North Carolina work which has included important wins to keep pollution out of the water we drink and air we breathe,” said Mary Maclean Asbill. “Our work stopping industrial chemical pollution, or ‘forever chemicals,’ and cleaning up toxic-laden coal ash is helping to protect North Carolina’s families and communities, and informing national policies to help prevent problems nationwide. We’re committed to working together with partners and communities across North Carolina to keep our air and water clean and hold polluters accountable while also advocating policies to address climate change.”

A North Carolina native, Asbill has led its state legislative work since 2011 as a senior attorney based in its Chapel Hill office. She lobbied at the North Carolina General Assembly for SELC and its partners on issues including water quality, coal ash, offshore drilling, industrial hog operations, and renewable energy. Over the years, Asbill has developed strong connections with the broader North Carolina environmental community and has been a driving force behind SELC’s diversity, equity, and inclusion work.

Asbill initially joined the organization as the first staff attorney in its Atlanta office in 1999 after serving on the Environmental Litigation team at Smith Gambrell and Russell in Atlanta. In 2003, she was appointed director of the Turner Environmental Law Clinic at Emory University School of Law. She moved to Raleigh in 2007 and joined the environmental team at Kilpatrick Stockton prior to rejoining SELC.

Asbill graduated from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in 1989 and the University of Georgia School of Law in 1993 where she served as a notes editor for the Georgia Law Review.