CLDC lawyers provided legal support for the “Weed 9,” and Water for Citizens of Weed, California (WCWC), nine members of the Weed community who faced a SLAPP suit brought by Roseburg Forest Products in their effort to control a local water source. That SLAPP suit against our clients was dismissed, and our clients were awarded attorney fees under California's SLAPP statute. Roseburg Forest Products' lawsuit came in response to the nine citizen activists voicing their concerns about their small city losing access to a vital public spring water source to the interests of the private logging company. RFP's attorneys asserted that they were just trying to resolve legal ownership issues regarding the water supply, but neither WCWC nor the nine people RFP's attorneys named in the suit had ever made any personal claim to the rights or title to the water supply — a fact the law firm admitted at the time. Yet even with that knowledge, the law firm appealed the court rulings and dragged the defendants through two more years of legal proceedings. Several of the nine activists are former mayors — some who are now in their 80s and 90s. The activists had participated in town meetings and taken other grassroots actions as members of WCWC, to educate their community about the threat to their water supply. After writing a letter requesting assistance from a state agency, and speaking out during a local meeting, they found themselves in court being sued by a $900 million timber company. California's SLAPP statute also includes what is known as a "SLAPPback" provision, allowing people who have been hit with a SLAPP suit to turn around and sue the "SLAPPer," for emotional distress damages and other remedies that go beyond an attorney fee award for having to defend the initial SLAPP suit. In April 2020 CLDC filed a SLAPPback suit against the Sacramento law firm Churchwell White LLP and two of its attorneys, alleging that they engaged in malicious and unlawful conduct when they (on behalf of their client, Roseburg Forest Products) filed the lawsuit against the Weed 9 and WCWC. We recently submitted our final brief on appeal in the "SLAPPback" lawsuit, and hope to have oral argument soon.