Barry Brock

Director, Alabama Office

Every person in Alabama deserves a healthy environment, and when someone identifies a threat to clean water or clean air, Barry is ready. He is the director of SELC’s Alabama office and focuses on litigating a variety of citizen suit actions. This type of litigation is brought by citizens through an environmental-protection law, such as the Clean Water Act or Clean Air Act, that gives citizens the right to take action against polluters who violate the law. 

Of all the work that SELC does, Barry is most passionate about citizen suits. These enable him, he says, “to leverage and apply my knowledge and experience with litigation for the highest purpose I can think of, to conserve and protect the planet now and for all who come after us.”

Barry also serves on the Litigation Development Committee, which provides SELC staff training and guidance on handling litigation. His experience prior to coming to SELC in 2015 includes 24 years as a litigator focusing on construction, commercial, real estate, and land use cases in Birmingham, and four years in New Orleans litigating maritime and environmental cases under the Oil Pollution Act and CERCLA.

Barry is a lifelong Southerner who was born in Virginia and grew up in Greenville, S.C., and Tuscaloosa, Ala. He loves the Chattooga River and Blue Ridge Mountains in the Carolinas, home to the family farm where he spent a lot of time as a child, and the Black Warrior River and its many tributaries, where he has boated, fished, and paddled frequently. Barry has lived in Birmingham for more than 25 years.

Previous experience

• Jones Walker (Birmingham), special counsel 
• Walston Wells (Birmingham), partner 
• Rice Fowler (New Orleans), attorney  
• J.D., Tulane Law School, cum laude 
• B.A., Auburn University, summa cum laude
• With SELC since 2015