Talk to the lawyers in the Sierra Club's Environmental Law Program and you will grasp, through the legalese, an astonishing fact: They are transitioning the U.S. electrical grid from coal to clean energy ("one dull hearing at a time," as Michael Grunwald put it in his Politico article).

This quiet revolution was made possible by the massive expansion of the Sierra Club's legal program over the last 12 years, which was largely overseen by Philip S. Berry, the longtime chair of the Litigation Committee who passed away two years ago. To honor him, the Sierra Club recently named one of its leading lawyers, Aaron Isherwood, as the first Philip S. Berry Managing Attorney. The two men had worked together closely for over a decade. Pat Gallagher, the law program's director, says, "Aaron's litigation docket reflects the aggressive, justice-minded bent of his title's namesake."

That docket includes contesting coal mining in Appalachia, the West, and Alaska and blocking the export of U.S. coal. Regarding Appalachia, says Gallagher, "Aaron's work has delivered tremendous results," with the Club partaking in a string of recent legal victories that hold mountaintop-removal operations accountable for their pollution. In that region, Isherwood modestly admits, "we have a particularly good story to tell."