SAN DIEGO--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Jul 13, 2026--
Cox, Castle & Nicholson LLP, a leading full-service law firm specializing in real estate in the United States, today announced that Theodore J. Griswold has joined the firm as a partner, expanding its San Diego presence and strengthening its capabilities in Native American law, land use, environmental, and natural resources.
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Based in San Diego, Ted advises tribal governments, public agencies, developers, landowners, and private clients on a broad range of complex legal matters involving Native American governance, tribal land issues, environmental permitting, natural and cultural resources, tribal consultations, habitat conservation, water resources, and land use. His practice includes fee-to-trust actions, tribal governance and code development, self-determination compacts and contracts, intergovernmental agreements, tribal leasing, tribal water settlements, infrastructure development, and state and federal permitting. He regularly represents clients before federal, state, local, and tribal agencies on permitting, regulatory compliance, and development matters.
Ted joins Cox Castle from Procopio, where he founded and led the firm's Native American Law practice group and was a member of the Environmental and Energy and Land Use practice groups. His arrival strengthens Cox Castle's growing team serving clients throughout the region and reflects the firm's continued investment in San Diego, including plans to open a local office as it expands its presence in one of California's most active real estate markets.
"Ted's arrival is another important milestone in our long-term commitment to San Diego and Southern California," said Mathew Wyman, chair of Cox Castle. "His nationally recognized Native American law practice and deep experience advising clients on complex land use, environmental, and governmental matters significantly expand our capabilities and further strengthen the strategic counsel we provide across California."
"Ted has built an outstanding reputation representing tribal governments as well as public and private sector clients on some of the most complex regulatory, environmental, and development matters in California," added Dwayne McKenzie, managing partner of Cox Castle. "His experience complements our land use, environmental, and real estate practices while adding significant depth in matters involving tribal governments and Native American law."
Throughout his career, Ted has advised clients on water supply development and protection, tribal utilities and infrastructure, environmental compliance, cultural resource protection, renewable energy, and complex permitting matters before agencies including the Bureau of Indian Affairs, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, California Coastal Commission, California Department of Fish & Wildlife, California Regional Water Quality Control Board, and numerous local jurisdictions.
Ted has been recognized in Best Lawyers® for Land Use and Zoning Law since 2023, holds Martindale-Hubbell's AV Preeminent® rating, was named among San Diego magazine's Top Lawyers for 10 consecutive years, and received the Tribal Justice Champion Award from the Ninth Annual Southern California Judicial Convening.
"Cox Castle has built an exceptional reputation as a leading real estate law firm, and I am excited to join a team known for handling significant development and land use matters," said Griswold. "The firm's deep real estate expertise and growing commitment to San Diego create an outstanding opportunity to continue serving tribal governments, developers, public agencies, and private clients throughout California."
About Cox, Castle & Nicholson LLP
Cox Castle was founded in Los Angeles in 1968, with the goal of providing superior and comprehensive legal services to businesses, institutions, and individuals across all aspects of the real estate, finance, and construction industries. Cox Castle is now one of the largest full-service law firms specializing in real estate in the United States, with more than 140 transactional attorneys and litigators across its Los Angeles, Orange County, and San Francisco offices.
The firm has substantial expertise in matters involving land and improved property acquisitions and dispositions; joint ventures; single and multifamily residential development; land use, entitlement, and regulatory compliance (including coastal commission and condemnation); office, industrial, retail, data centers, and mixed-use development, leasing, and management; commercial lending and institutional investment; loan workouts and financial restructuring; construction; resort and hospitality; labor and employment; risk management and insurance; environmental compliance; renewable energy and natural resources; and tax and estate planning. For more information, please visit www.coxcastle.com.
Theodore J. Griswold
President Donald Trump on Monday reduced the size of two national monuments in Utah, undoing protections established by former presidents on public lands that are sacred among many Native Americans.
Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante national monuments in southern Utah have ancient cliff dwellings, petroglyphs and scenic canyons, as well as coal and uranium deposits that state officials want made available for development.
Trump, a Republican, issued proclamations under the Antiquities Act to reduce their size. He took similar actions during his first term, but those were reversed by President Joe Biden, a Democrat.
The latest move comes as Trump and other Republicans have drastically reshaped the management of vast taxpayer-owned lands concentrated in Western states. Trump administration officials and congressional Republicans have sought to expand drilling, mining and logging on public lands, while removing protections for imperiled species and rolling back rules for conservation.
President Bill Clinton, a Democrat, established Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument in 1996, and President Barack Obama, also a Democrat, created Bears Ears National Monument in 2016 under the Antiquities Act. The 1906 law gives presidents the powers to protect sites considered historic, archaeologically significant or culturally important.
Utah officials have long fought against the monument designation and have argued that the state should be in charge of controlling its own lands. Trump in his first term reduced their size, calling their creation a “massive land grab.” Combined they span more than 3.2 million acres (13 million hectares), an area nearly the size of Connecticut.
Bears Ears was the first national monument protected at the request of tribal nations that consider the land sacred. The landscape contains ancestral villages, ceremonial and burial sites and features in some tribes’ creation and migration stories. Its designation honored five tribes in the region — Navajo, Hopi, Zuni, Ute Mountain Ute and Uintah-Ouray Ute.
Home to hundreds of thousands of objects of cultural and scientific significance, Bears Ears is jointly managed by an agreement between tribal nations and federal agencies.
Grand Staircase-Escalante consists of cliffs, canyons, natural arches and archaeological sites, including rock paintings. It holds large coal reserves, while the Bears Ears area has uranium.
The national monument designation provides sweeping protections not just for significant geological features or artifacts but also for the surrounding landscape, banning drilling, mining and new construction nearby. Proponents of Trump’s plan to downsize say the protective boundaries stretch too far and hinder mining for critical minerals.
Biden designated or expanded more than a dozen monuments and had a goal to conserve at least 30% of U.S. lands and waters by 2030.
Trump’s policies are largely the opposite: He wants to tap into the natural resource wealth of federal lands that total more than 100,000 square miles (260,000 square kilometers) and offshore areas under federal control, such as in the Gulf of Mexico and off Alaska.
That’s drawn a sharp backlash from Democrats and conservationists, who warn of the wholesale disposal of treasured landscapes for commercial gain.
Trump Interior Secretary Doug Burgum had said last year that federal officials would review and consider redrawing the boundaries of national monuments as part of a push to expand U.S. energy production.
Trump’s in his current term has used proclamations to lift commercial fishing prohibitions within expansive marine monuments in areas of the Pacific Ocean and in the Atlantic Ocean off the New England coast. Those monuments were created by Democratic and Republican administrations. The effort to boost the fishing industry, which has been challenged in court, marks a dramatic shift in federal policy by prioritizing commercial interests over efforts to allow the fish supply to increase.
The Supreme Court has affirmed the president’s authority to create national monuments, and both Democrats and Republicans have used the Antiquities Act. But there’s been debate about whether Trump has the authority to change the boundaries of existing monuments.
Some Republicans have tried to sell or transfer federal lands to states or other entities. Those efforts have largely fallen flat: A push by some GOP lawmakers in the House to sell public lands ran into bipartisan opposition, while another proposal by Sen. Mike Lee of Utah to sell more than 3,200 square miles (8,300 square kilometers) of federal lands was removed from Republicans' big tax and spending bill.
The U.S. Supreme Court last year turned back a lawsuit from Utah officials who sought to wrest control of vast areas of public land within the state from the federal government.
FILE - Newspaper Rock, featuring a rock panel of petroglyphs in the Indian Creek Area, is seen near Monticello, Utah, on July 14, 2016. (AP Photo/Rick Bowmer, File)
President Donald Trump and Utah Gov. Spencer Cox listen as Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah, speaks in the Oval Office of the White House, Monday, July 13, 2026, in Washington. (AP Photo/Julia Demaree Nikhinson)
FILE - The Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument in Utah is seen on July 9, 2017. (Spenser Heaps/The Deseret News via AP, File)
