Book Review: Building Your Environmental Law Collection With Solano Press Books

• Jurisdiction: California,United States
• Citation: Vol. 32 No. 2
• Publication year: 2023
• Author: Written by Sara Dudley
• topic: Environmental Law

BOOK REVIEW: BUILDING YOUR ENVIRONMENTAL LAW COLLECTION WITH SOLANO PRESS BOOKS

Written by Sara Dudley¹

The Environmental Law News Book Review is a recurring column that highlights important and interesting books on environmental law, science and policy. This review focuses on two practice guides published by Solano Press Books: Environmental Law and Policy: A Practical Guide, 2nd Edition (2017) by Albert I. Herson and Gary A. Lucks and Natural Resource Regulation in California: A Practical Guide to Agency Permitting and Procedures, 1st Edition (2019) by Clark Morrison and Scott B. Birkey.

SOLANO PRESS BOOKS

As a former law librarian, I know the value of shopping by publisher when you practice in a specialized area of the law. Solano Press Books is such a publisher. Founded in 1985 by Warren Jones, a California city planning consultant, Solano Press Books exclusively publishes treatises on California environmental law, land use, public law, permitting and planning.

Supporting and utilizing a specialty California-based publisher will help your practice. Specialists do not need a few paragraphs tucked into general treatises; they need detailed, California-specific information from subject matter experts. To that end, Solano Press publishes treatises authored and edited by California's leading authorities in the field. (Naturally, this includes authors who are CLA Environmental Law Section members.)

Environmental Law News interviewed Solano Press Books to learn more about this unique company.²

Why do California practitioners need a publisher that focuses just on land use and environmental law?

When [founder] Warren Jones was teaching at UC Berkeley's Department of City and Regional Planning he used a text written by planning pioneer Dan Curtin, and which was then published by UC Press. When they decided to stop publishing it, Warren, seeing an interest in the material by a variety of professionals in addition to his students, saw the value in publishing it himself, and Solano Press Books was born. So, our roots are of a city planner becoming a publisher, rather than a publisher delving into land use and environmental law in California.

How has Solano Press Books grown and evolved since it was founded by Mr. Jones, under continued direction of Ms. Jones and Mr. Handel?

We have endeavored to continue Warren's philosophy of making this

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subject matter accessible and approachable while remaining comprehensive and well organized. We have added titles within our established interest area, such as The General Plan in California by David Early, Navigating the California Coastal Act by Jana Zimmer and Land Use Planning in California by Thomas Jacobson. Unlike Warren, we are not planners, but we do recognize that our company is uniquely positioned to serve planners and people interested in land use and environmental law issues.

Along with Continuing Education of the Bar (CEB) published by the Regents of the University of California, Solano Press Books is one of the few remaining independent publishers of California law. Why is remaining an independent publisher important?

We are very proud to be an independent publisher in California. Being independent means that we have more control over our books and authors maintain greater control over their work, both from a creative and promotional standpoint. We do require peer review and provide editorial resources, but the authors are fully in control of their content. Being independent

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