Fast facts:
Session at NALC’s Western Conference focuses on public access, private property
Karen Budd-Falen, Ryan Semerad presenting
Conference registration is online
FAYETTEVILLE — Congressional action in the 1800s divided large swaths of land in the American West into squares of public and private property, creating both a checkerboard pattern and confusion over what’s legal when it comes to land use.
Wyoming attorneys Ryan Semerad and Karen Budd-Falen will present the session "Streambeds, Game Trails, & Corner Crossings: Public Access and Private Property" at the National Ag Law Center's Western Ag & Environmental Law Conference. (Images courtesy Ryan Semerad and Karen Budd-Falen)
The companion to this checkerboarding is an issue known as “corner crossings,” where people pass through multiple types of lands while traveling from one destination to another. This raises questions for landowners who may own land that is mixed into the checkerboard.
“All sorts of questions arise with checkerboard lands and corner crossings,” Ryan Semerad, managing member of Wyoming law firm Fuller & Semerad, LLC, said. “Can strangers walk through your fields and rangelands? Can landowners keep the public off public lands and out of waterways? Is ‘corner crossing’ legal, illegal, or something else?”
According to onX, Wyoming has 2.44 million acres of corner-locked lands, which it defines as “Public land that is inaccessible to the general public because there is no public road or trail to get there AND because the legality of corner-crossing remains unclear.” This is the most of any state. Following Wyoming is Nevada with 1.93 million acres, which is then followed by Arizona and Montana.
Semerad is presenting a session on public access and private property in the West at the Western Agricultural and Environmental Law Conference alongside Karen Budd-Falen, senior partner and owner of Wyoming’s Budd-Falen Law Offices. The two will discuss issues of access, navigability and private property rights permeating the West’s checkerboard lands. The session is titled “Streambeds, Game Trails, & Corner Crossings: Public Access & Private Property.”
The conference, hosted by the National Agricultural Law Center, will be held on June 13-14 at the University of Nevada, Reno, with a livestream option available. Registration and agenda are available online.
Map of the Santa Rosa and San Jacinto Mountains National Monument showing examples of checkerboarding
Map of the Santa Rosa and San Jacinto Mountains National Monument showing examples of checkerboarding
Budd-Falen, who previously served under the Trump Administration as Deputy Solicitor for Wildlife and Parks in the U.S. Department of the Interior, spoke at last year’s inaugural Western Conference. She is a member of the NALC’s Western Ag Industry Advisory Board, which was established in 2023 to increase partnerships and outreach from the NALC to the Western U.S.
“Ryan and I look forward to this session on a unique topic in Western U.S. agriculture,” Budd-Falen said. “We will provide a balanced and practical overview of the competing interests and stakeholders in the Checkerboard.”
Harrison Pittman, director of the NALC, said that conference attendees will hear great insight from Semerad and Budd-Falen.
“Ryan and Karen are experts in Western agricultural law, and excellent choices to lead this presentation on an important topic to Western agriculture,” Harrison Pittman, director of the NALC, said. “It’s a very unique issue to the West. I know they will present information that is useful to a wide variety of ag attorneys and professionals."
