Seth Barsky is a highly respected authority on federal environmental, natural resources law and administrative law. He draws on decades of experience within the Department of Justice (DOJ) across numerous administrations to advise clients on matters related to permitting, regulatory counseling and litigation, and interagency policy coordination.

Seth joined Bracewell after a distinguished career with the DOJ, where he served for over three decades and held senior roles within the Environment and Natural Resources Division (ENRD), including most recently as Deputy Assistant Attorney General.

As a member of the Department of Justice’s ENRD senior leadership team overseeing 450 attorneys, Seth supervised the Wildlife and Marine Resources Section (WMRS), Environmental Defense Section (EDS) and Environmental Crimes Section (ECS). He was responsible for civil enforcement, criminal prosecution and defensive litigation under federal environment and natural resources law, which often involved significant constitutional and administrative law issues.

Seth is widely recognized as one of the nation’s leading authorities on species protection laws, such as the Endangered Species Act and the Marine Mammal Protection Act. His expertise extends to matters related to the Clean Air Act (CAA), Clean Water Act (CWA), Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation and Liability Act (CERCLA); National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) and Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA). He also has deep experience in administrative law and litigation, including overseeing the defense of challenges to numerous high-profile rulemakings and supervising the litigation that culminated in the Supreme Court’s watershed decision in Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo (2025).

Seth originally joined ENRD in 1990, serving as a trial attorney and senior attorney in EDS, where he litigated cases under the major federal pollution control statutes. He moved to WMRS in 1999 to become an Assistant Section Chief before serving as the Section Chief from 2011 to 2022, conducting civil litigation in federal courts brought under federal wildlife and marine resource statutes. A frequent lecturer on topics related to environmental, natural resources and administrative law, Seth has served as an adjunct professor at the University of Michigan Law School; Washington College of Law, American University; Columbus School of Law, Catholic University of America; and Villanova University School of Law.