Christina Morkner-Brown

Christina Morkner-Brown(opens in new window), who graduated cum laude and recipient of the Smale scholarship in 1989 with a BA in Economics and a Minor in Philosophy, is senior attorney at the California Air Resources Board(opens in new window) in Sacramento, California.  She advises staff, defends the agency in litigation, and enforces their regulations. 

In 2004 Christina entered the McGeorge School of Law(opens in new window) at the University of the Pacific.  While a student at McGeorge Christina was president of the Environmental Law Society and treasurer of the American Constitutional Society. She was on the Dean’s Honor List for her last 3 years and she received the Witkin’s Award(opens in new window) for the highest grade in environmental law.   Christina was a legal intern for Friends of the Swainson’s Hawk(opens in new window), the Sierra club(opens in new window), and the California Department of Justice(opens in new window).  She was a judicial extern for the California Court of Appeals(opens in new window). 

Christina graduated in 2008 in the top 2% from McGeorge with Distinction and the Order of the Coif, and she joined Keyon Yeates LLP as litigation associate.  After 2 years with Yeates, she joined the California Air Resources Board as staff attorney.  At the end of 2014 she was promoted to assistant chief counsel.

When asked about the value of her econ degree, Christian stated in a recent email, “I think it was a rigorous program that challenged me to develop my analytical and problem solving skills, which are essential to being a successful attorney.  A background in economics has also helped me understand our agency's market based programs better (ie. cap and trade for GHG emissions). Also, what I learned for econometric modeling has helped me better understand modeling my agency does for air quality e.g. forecasting emissions based on existing data.”  (Last Updated 12/20/16)