Sage Ertman
Associate
Sage Ertman is an associate in Ring Bender’s Portland office. He works closely with the firm’s partners in Oregon and California to advise businesses, municipal entities and individual clients in regulatory compliance, permitting and litigation matters involving a broad spectrum of environmental, natural resources, energy and land use issues under federal and state law.
Sage and the other members of Ring Bender’s Environmental Law and Litigation practice group draw upon a wide range of unique skills, years of experience and expertise by working as a team to effectively serve clients’ needs. This teamwork approach allows the group to provide clients with prompt, high quality and creative advice and solutions to even the most complex legal issues.
Before joining Ring Bender, Sage worked as a judicial clerk at the Multnomah County Circuit Court for Judge Eric J. Bloch. In addition to clerking general criminal matters and START court, a high-volume intensive drug treatment court, Sage assisted Judge Bloch with a complex civil motions docket drafting judicial opinions covering a wide range of state, federal and constitutional issues.
While at Lewis & Clark Law School where he studied environmental, natural resources, and energy law, Sage served as an associate editor and the online editor for Environmental Law, the nation’s oldest law review dedicated solely to environmental issues. Sage also authored an article on the Clean Air Act selected by his peers for publication in Environmental Law, for which Lewis & Clark Law School awarded him the Bernard F. O’Rourke Award. His law school summers were spent working as a policy intern at Green Energy Institute, and then as a judicial extern for Judge Michael H. Simon at the United States District Court for the District of Oregon.
Prior to law school, Sage worked as a legal assistant in a family law firm in Manhattan Beach, CA, where much of his family and friends still reside.
Outside of the office, Sage loves playing sports and spending time outdoors. He enjoys snowboarding, hiking, camping, climbing and mountain biking. He and his significant other also love trips to the dog park or the Oregon coast with their one-and-only world-class pup, Sweetie. Last but not least, Sage is an avid fan of his life-long favorite football team, the Green Bay Packers.
Professional Affiliations
- Executive Committee Member – Oregon State Bar, Environmental and Natural Resources Section (2023-2024)
Publications
- “A Global Perspective or Domestic Chicanery? EPA’s New Aircraft Rule” American Bar Association Section of Environment, Energy & Resources: Natural Resources & Environment, Vol. 37, No. 4 (Spring 2023) (co-authored with Norman A. Dupont of Ring Bender LLP).
- “Climate Change and the PSD Program”: Using BACT to Combat the Incumbency of Fossil Fuels, 47 Envtl. L. 995 (2018)
Education
- J.D., Lewis & Clark Law School (2018), cum laude, Certificate in Environmental, Natural Resources and Energy Law
- Associate Editor/Online Editor, Environmental Law
- Bernard O’Rourke Award
- B.A., Business Economics, University of San Diego (2013)
- Economic Honors Society
Bar Admissions
- Oregon
