Stephanie L. Talavera

Stephanie is a senior associate in the land use and entitlement practice group at Rutan & Tucker LLP and has extensive experience assisting clients in navigating California’s complex, ever-evolving development process.  Stephanie guides clients through the entitlement and environmental review process with the aim of getting a project approved and the skill to litigate it if necessary. 

In 2023, the Greater Irvine Chamber of Commerce honored her as one of Orange County’s 40 under 40. Additionally, she held the positions of Chair and Vice Chair for the Orange County Bar Association’s Environmental Law Section in 2020 and 2019, respectively. Stephanie is set to assume the role of Vice Chair for the OCBA Environmental Law Section in 2025, followed by her position as Chair in 2026. Stephanie’s academic fellowship at UCI’s Center for Land, Environment, and Natural Resources is where she developed a deep understanding of the practice, promoting innovative multidisciplinary research on a variety of topics, hosting roundtables and conferences with top experts in the field, and coauthoring two articles in the prestigious Environmental Law Reporter: Improving Water Quality and Ecosystem Health in California’s Marine Managed Areas, 48 Envtl. L. Rep. 10818-36 (2018) (with Elizabeth Taylor & Alejandro Camacho) and Emerging Regulatory Experiments in Permit Process Coordination for Endangered Species and Aquatic Resources in California, 46 Envtl. L. Rep. 10131 (2016) (with Elizabeth Taylor, Melissa Kelly, & Alejandro Camacho).