Neil was 59 (a month short of 60) when he died. Neil was a leading environmental lawyer and noted documentary photographer. He published several books. Neil received an electrical engineering degree from MIT, an MBA from Harvard, and a law degree from Columbia University. He worked on the economic development of Africa for the World Bank and then shifted his professional focus to government work, taking a job with the Environmental Protection Agency soon after its creation and, later, becoming an environmental lawyer with the President`s Council of Environmental Quality. He taught environmental law at Cornell University`s Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering and practiced environmental law with private law firms in Los Angeles and Salt Lake City. In 2001, he returned to Cornell University to teach documentary photography in the school`s College of Art, Architecture and Planning.

For many years, Neil created individual photographs. In 1996, he began making a series of photographs exploring single themes or subjects. His photographic study of the homeless in Salt Lake City: Under the Fifth Street Overpass was awarded a Utah Governors Award in the Humanities in 2002 and was published by Art Access Gallery in a book of the same name. His photography has been featured in solo and group exhibitions in New York, Chicago, and Salt Lake City.