Ralph W. Kasarda

Staff Attorney, National Litigation Center
(916) 419-7111

Practice areas

Background
Ralph Kasarda joined Pacific Legal Foundation in July 2007. His primary legal interests are individual rights and environmental law.

Education
A native of Berkeley, California, Mr. Kasarda enlisted in the U.S. Marine Corps reserve, and went on to complete Officer Candidate School at Quantico, Virginia. Upon graduation from San Francisco State University with a degree in physical science and concentration in meteorology, he was commissioned a second lieutenant and began his career as a Marine officer. On active duty he served in several artillery and intelligence officer billets with deployments to Okinawa, the Republic of Korea and the Philippines. He then left active duty and attended graduate school. at George Mason University where he received a Master of Arts in Education with emphasis in secondary education. He taught earth science and social studies at two Virginia high schools before returning to California to attend law school.

Mr. Kasarda is a graduate of the Golden Gate University School of Law where for his academic excellence he received merit scholarships his final two years, and the Environmental Law Award. During law school he interned at the law school’s Environmental Law & Justice Clinic, the California Department of Water Resources, and the California Attorney General’s Natural Resources Section. Following law school, he clerked for a Federal administrative law judge in the U.S. Department of Labor where he assisted in the drafting of decisions and orders from cases involving the Longshore and Harbor Workers’ Compensation Act, the Surface Transportation Act, and the Energy Reorganization Act. He then worked for six years in the field of liability defense at law firms in the San Francisco Bay Area and Sacramento before joining PLF.