The CLA’s 2026 Trailblazer Award recognizes Lieff Cabraser, Farella Braun + Martel, and legal scholars Erwin Chemerinsky and Claudia Polsky for their collective efforts challenging the unlawful termination of federal research grants across the University of California system
We are proud to announce that Lieff Cabraser’s Thakur v. Trump team has received the California Lawyers Association Environmental Law Section’s 2026 Trailblazer Award.
Established in 2024, the Trailblazer Award recognizes environmental leaders whose innovative and creative legal work has improved the lives of Californians and the California environment. The award will be presented at the Environmental Law Section’s annual conference at Yosemite, taking place October 15–18, 2026.
The Thakur team was honored for its pro bono representation of University of California researchers whose federal grant funding was unlawfully terminated by the Trump Administration. The first-of-its-kind class action challenges sweeping federal actions that resulted in abrupt cuts to research grants administered by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, National Science Foundation, Department of Energy, and other federal agencies.
Since the litigation began, the team has donated more than 6,000 hours of legal work and helped restore more than 1,000 research grants worth over $700 million to the UC system. The team continues to litigate to reinstate more than $1.5 billion in canceled clean-energy and carbon-capture funding and is also nearing a settlement with the EPA that would permanently secure covered grants to UC researchers.
According to the Environmental Law Section, the team represents a rare collaboration among academic, plaintiffs’ bar, and defense attorneys working together to preserve critical scientific and environmental research.
The LCHB team included:
Elizabeth Cabraser
Richard Heimann
Kevin Budner
Annie Wanless
Clare Perez
Congratulations to all!
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