• Conservation Easement Negotiating and Drafting: CPC's primary area of practice is representing land trusts and landowners in negotiating and drafting perpetual conservation easements.  CPC also represents land trusts and landowners in negotiating and drafting purchase and sale agreements for conservation easement and fee title transfers.  CPC can also assist in complex closings. Depending upon the particular circumstances, CPC can assist landowners in achieving tax deductions and wealth preservation while also achieving land preservation.

• Conservation Easement Enforcement: In addition to CPC's transactional work, CPC can assist land trusts in conservation easement enforcement.  CPC can also provide representation in high profile land use and environmental cases involving litigation before local government, administrative bodies and state and federal courts.   CPC is also experienced in handling land use and environmental appeals.

CPC Assists Landowners in Reducing Property Taxes

•  Property Tax Reduction:  Join with other landowners in CPC's upcoming national campaign to provide property tax relief to owners of real property subject to a conservation easement.  This national campaign is anticipated to involve lobbying efforts at local and state levels and administrative and court appeals all aimed at reducing property taxes on eased land.  Landowners joining in this project may benefit from reduced attorney fees and costs as a result of cost and risk spreading in joint administrative and legal challenges to excessive property tax assessments.

CPC Protects Native American Cultural Resources

• Protection of Native American Cultural Resources:  CPC can assist clients in the protection of Native American cultural resources using conservation easements.  CPC can also provide representation in historic preservation.  For recent legal scholarship on protecting Native American resources through conservation easements, the following works are recommended: "Tribes as Trustees Again (Part I): The Emerging Tribal Role in the Conservation Trust Movement," Harvard Environmental Law Journal (Prof. Mary C. Wood with Zach Welker) (Spring 2008); and "Tribes as Trustees Again (Part II): Evaluating Four Models of Tribal Participation in the Conservation Trust Movement," Stanford Environmental Law Journal (Prof. Mary C. Wood with Matthew O'Brien) (Spring 2008).

CPC Assists in Carbon Offset Marketing

• Carbon Offset Marketing: CPC assists land trusts and landowners in developing and marketing carbon offsets in response to climate change.  Carbon offsets can be achieved in many ways, from avoided deforestation to planting trees.  Adding a carbon offset program to a donated or purchased conservation easement can increase the monetary benefits available to the landowner.

CPC Provides Institutional Services

• LTA Standards and Accreditation: CPC can also help land trusts identify and comply with the Land Trust Alliance Standards and Practices and achieve accreditdation through the LTA Accreditation Process.  In addition CPC provides a number of institutional services such as: (1) formation of 501(c)(3) nonprofit corporations or other business entities such as limited liability companies; (2) advising land trusts on institutional and board member liability and risk management strategies (see e.g., "Key Facts About Insurance and Legal Liability").  For group memberships, CPC also gives major presentations on land trust related issues.  For example, CPC has sponsored seven major panels since 2006, with panelists including leaders in the field of conservation easement practice and conservation easement scholarship.

• CPC'S High-Tech Approach to Law Practice:  To help develop its national client base, Conservation & Preservation Counsel has adopted a high-tech approach to the practice of law.  As a result, it is easy to communicate with Conservation & Preservation Counsel 24/7 and to exchange documents by email (using word processing or PDF files) or fax.  Using Conservation and Preservation Counsel's subscription to GoToMeeting, CPC clients and their staff can even teleconference with CPC attorney Jim Olmsted while editing documents that appear on all conference participants' computer monitors simultaneously.