Mr. Carter was born February 25, 1935 in Wingate, Texas and was admitted to the California State Bar in 1963. He was a U.S. Marine Corp Infantry officer from 1956 to 1959; and he is a 1962 graduate of Stanford University Law School, where he became a member of the Order of the Coif, and was an editor on the Stanford Law Review. He was law clerk to United States Supreme Court Justice William O. Douglas in 1962 to 1963, and served as assistant professor of law at Stanford University Law School from 1963 to 1965.
Mr. Carter engaged in private practice in San Francisco with the firm of Cooley, Crowley, Gaither, Castro, Godward, and Huddleston, for two years before beginning approximately eight years of employment with the federal government from 1967 to 1975. He served as Assistant Legal Advisor in the United States Department of State from 1968 through 1971, principal Deputy Director of the Office of Ocean Affairs, Department of Defense, for one year, and as Deputy Under Secretary of Interior from 1972-1975. While serving in the State Department: 1) he was a member of the U.S. delegation to United Nations Conference in Geneva Switzerland to negotiate an international convention of the law of treaties in 1968; and, 2) in 1979 he headed the U.S. delegation to United Nations Conference in Guatemala City to renegotiate the Warsaw Convention on Civil Aviation. While Serving as Principal Deputy Director of the Office of Ocean Affairs in the U.S. Department of Defense he represented the Defense Department in inter-governmental and international negotiations respecting the United Nations Conference on the Law of the Sea.
Mr. Carter has practiced in Ukiah, California consistently since 1975, except for the period of September 1999 until November 2006, when he was Executive Vice President and General Counsel, or a consultant, for the Pacific Lumber Company in Scotia, California. His practice in Ukiah has been in all areas of general civil and administrative law, and trial practice, with an emphasis upon business, real property, environmental, land use, and litigation. He has litigated several significant state and federal cases including: in the state courts: Murphy v. Burch (2009) 46 Cal.4th 157; Public Resources Protection Assn. v. CA Dept. of Forestry (1994) 7 Cal.4th 111; Sierra Club v. Board of Forestry (1994) 7 Cal.4th 1215; Buehler v. Oregon-Washington Plywood Corp. (1976) 17 Cal.3d 520; Brown v. Superior Court (1975) 15 Cal.3d 52; Millview County Water District v. State Water Resources Control Board (2014) 229 Cal.App.4th 879; Light v. State Water Resources Control Board (2014) 226 Cal.App.4th 1463; Katzeff v. California Department of Forestry (2010) 181 Cal.App.4th 601; Elk County Water Dist. v. Dep’t of Forestry & Fire Prot. (1997) 53 Cal.App.4th 1; E.P.I.C. v. State Board of Forestry, et al. (1993) 20 Cal.App.4th 27; Albion River Watershed Protection Association, et al. v. Department of Forestry and Fire Protection, et al. (1993) 20 Cal.App.4th 34; E.P.I.C., et al. v. Maxxam Corporation, et al. (1992) 4 Cal.App.4th 1373; T.R.E.E.S. v. Deptarment of Forestry and Fire Protection, et al. (1991) 233 Cal.App.3d 1175; E.P.I.C. v. Johnson (1985) 170 Cal.App.3d 604; Joseph v. Masonite Corp. (1983) 148 Cal.App.3d 6; Estate of Jeffers (1982) 134 Cal.App.3d 729; in the federal courts: Marbled Murrelet v. Babbitt, et al. (1999) 182 F.3d 1091; Marbled Murrelet v. Babbitt, et al. (1997) 111 F.3d 1447; Marbled Murrelet v. Babbitt, et al. (1996) 83 F.3d 1068.
