About Alexa
Alexa McKay built her legal training around two interests that began in different classrooms: language and the environment. She studied linguistics at Northwestern University and added a minor in environmental policy and culture before going on to law school. She earned a J.D. from Chicago-Kent College of Law and later completed an LL.M. in Environmental and Natural Resources Law at the University of Denver Sturm College of Law.
Her early work tied those academic threads together. While in law school she served as a student-lawyer in the University of Denver Environmental Law Clinic, handling matters that exposed her to the procedural side of environmental litigation and policy work. During law school summers she worked as a law clerk at Baker McKenzie and earlier served as a legal research assistant for the National Anti-Vivisection Society, where she researched animal welfare and regulatory questions.
After finishing her LL.M., she helped found Environmental and Animal Defense in 2017 and took on the role of executive director. That step moved her from student practice and clerking into organizational leadership and public-interest legal work. In 2018 she returned to the University of Denver as an adjunct professor, teaching courses that drew on her clinic work and the topics covered in her graduate study.
McKay is a member of the Colorado State Bar, a membership she has held since 2017. Her practice reflects the combination of classroom study and clinic experience: regulatory matters, administrative hearings, and litigation that touch both environmental protection and animal welfare policy. Colleagues describe her approach as methodical; she layers statutory research, administrative procedure, and factual investigation when preparing a case or advising an organization.
Her time running a small nonprofit law office has given her hands-on experience managing cases and the practical tasks of running an advocacy group. That work has required drafting regulatory comments, appearing before administrative bodies, and coordinating with scientists and policy experts. She has also taught law students, helping them translate classroom concepts into the concrete work of client representation and public advocacy.
Today she remains based in Colorado and continues to lead Environmental and Animal Defense. Her practice concentrates on environmental and animal-protection law, including administrative and regulatory work in Colorado.
