Robert H. Thomas has published inversecondemnation.com since 2006.
An elected member of the American Law Institute, Robert received his LLM, with honors, from Columbia Law School where he was a Harlan Fiske Stone Scholar, and his JD from the University of Hawaii School of Law where he served as editor of the Law Review.
After many years practicing dirt law as a partner in a private firm in Hawaii and California, he made the switch to public interest law, and presently is the Director of Property Rights Litigation at Pacific Legal Foundation, where he steers the firm’s property rights lawyers as they move and shape the law in courtrooms across the nation–from the Supreme Court on down.
He also serves as the inaugural Joseph T. Waldo Visiting Chair in Property Rights Law at William & Mary Law School in Williamsburg, Virginia, where he teaches upper-division courses in eminent domain, land use, property rights, and property law.
While in private practice, Robert was the Hawaii member of Owners’ Counsel of America, a national network of the most experienced eminent domain and property rights lawyers. Membership in OCA is by invitation only, and is limited to a single attorney from each state. He remains an Honorary Member of OCA.
He also has served as the Chair of the American Bar Association’s Section of State & Local Government Law, and was the long-time chair of the Section’s Eminent Domain Law Committee. He also has served as the Editor-in-Chief of the Section’s scholarly legal journal on municipal law issues, The Urban Lawyer.
In 2025, the Section presented Robert with the Jefferson Fordham Award (Anita P. Miller Advocacy Award).
He is also the Co-Planning Chair of the American Law Institute-CLE’s long-running yearly three-day national conference on condemnation law, Eminent Domain and Land Valuation Litigation, now in its 43d year. He is also a frequent speaker on property, land use, and eminent domain issues nationwide, and regularly publishes scholarly and practical articles in his area of practice. For a partial list, go here.
Robert has been selected by his peers for inclusion in the Best Lawyers in America lists several areas, including Eminent Domain & Condemnation Law, Land Use & Zoning Law, Litigation-Land Use & Zoning, Appellate Law, and Real Estate Law, and has been selected as Lawyer of the Year in several fields in California and Hawaii.
This blog is one of the most widely-read on property rights, eminent domain, takings, and land use.
