Located in the heart of Denver's financial district, Welborn Sullivan Meck & Tooley is a preeminent Rocky Mountain law firm combining global experience with personal attention to provide comprehensive legal services related to business transactions, corporate law and finance, natural resources, and litigation.

821 Seventeenth Street, Suite 500
Denver, Colorado 80202
Tel: (303) 830-2500
Fax: (303) 832-2366

123 W. 1st Street, Suite 100
Casper, Wyoming 82601
Tel: (307) 234-6907
Fax: (307) 234-6908

Former U.S. Interior Department Official Joins Firm

         Rebecca C. Watson, former Assistant Secretary for Lands and Minerals Management of the U.S. Department of the Interior, has joined the Firm as a partner.  Ms. Watson has more than 30 years of legal and policy experience in the fields of conventional and renewable energy, natural resources (grazing, mining and timber) and federal environmental law.  As Assistant Secretary of the Interior Department she had oversight of three organizations:  the Bureau of Land Management (BLM), Minerals Management Service (MMS) and the Office of Surface Mining (OSM), which together have the responsibility for management of federal energy resources. In that role, she led 12,000 employees and managed a $1 billion budget.  Ms. Watson was honored by the Boone and Crockett Club, the oldest U.S. organization dedicated to the conservation of wildlife, for her work in conservation while at the Department of the Interior.  Prior to her service in the Interior Department, Ms. Watson served as the Assistant General Counsel for Energy Policy at the U. S. Department of Energy in the George H. W. Bush administration. 

                  Ms. Watson focuses her practice on public land access and energy development for solar, wind, geothermal, wood biomass, and oil and gas with an emphasis on federal environmental law.  She represented the first solar project on federal lands, advised wind energy developers on mineral rights and advised clients on the Geothermal Steam Act of 2005. 

                  Ms. Watson was most recently a natural resources partner at Hogan & Hartson (now Hogan Lovells).  She has also been a partner and counsel in two Washington D.C. law firms and served as Managing Partner for a firm in Helena, Montana.  She is a frequent speaker and author on topics of natural resources, federal environmental law, energy policy and renewable energy.  She is a member of the Rocky Mountain Mineral Law Foundation and the National Petroleum Council.  She serves on the boards of the Independent Petroleum Association of the Mountain States (IPAMS), Jefferson County Open Space Commission, Center of the American West at the University of Colorado and the Public Land Policy Institute at the University Of Montana School Of Law.

                  Rebecca Watson received her J.D. from the University of Denver Law School, as well as a M.A. and B.A. from the University of Denver.  She is admitted to practice in Colorado, Wyoming, Montana and the District of Columbia. 

Colorado Super Lawyers & Rising Stars

WELBORN SULLIVAN MECK & TOOLEY is a pre-eminent Rocky Mountain law firm combining global experience with personal attention. The firm is an established leader in natural resources, litigation and business transactions. This year, four of its attorneys have been recognized in Colorado Super Lawyers® and two in Rising Stars.

› read more