Environment

An experienced partner

Our team offers you access to comprehensive representation across a wide range of environmental, legal, and policy issues. We understand your business and interface with scientists, engineers, and development professionals, as well as attorneys and executives.

Regulation, compliance, and enforcement

Our regulatory experience—as well as the deep scientific and technical understanding—can help you develop practical yet cost-effective compliance strategies that adhere to the best practices of your industry.

On your behalf, we can bring even the most challenging projects to successful conclusion, including:

• Creating and performing internal environmental health and safety audits and investigations
• Developing and implementing environmental management systems
• Establishing and renewing corporate sustainability programs

We routinely affect the regulatory landscape. When new regulation occurs or new court decisions are handed down, we quickly evaluate the likely effects on your compliance obligations and your business practices. We also help you identify opportunities that might arise.

Transactional and redevelopment

Our lawyers wrote the book on brownfields redevelopment. Whether you are involved in a corporate transaction, a real estate purchase/divestiture, a brownfields redevelopment program, or any other kind of deal, you need a partner who is skilled at identifying, quantifying, allocating, and resolving environmental risks to maximize transaction value and minimize your potential liability.

Policy

With the understanding that environmental rules are always evolving, we constantly monitor both the rules and the science.

We work closely with senior stakeholders in trade groups and among the regulators and policymakers themselves. If a rule is clearly not working, we have the resources and the influence to effect changes. We don't just react to environmental policy, we help make it.

Litigation

In the event your issues spill over into litigation, our team of seasoned litigators can represent you vigorously in any situation.

Like our clients, we see every dispute as a business problem—not just a legal or political concern—and any litigation strategy we create will be focused squarely on your business and financial objectives.

What we do

Clients trust us to advise them in connection with matters arising under all types of environmental laws, including:

• Air-quality issues on the local, state, and federal levels
• Climate change mitigation and adaptation
• Hazardous waste management and Superfund liability
• Water quality
• Cleantech
• Land use and development
• Natural resource exploration and production
• Remediation/brownfields
• Management of endangered species and coastal resources
• Chemical regulation, including registration, use, and marketing of pesticides
• Consumer and other product content restrictions and disclosures
• Environmental due diligence in business transactions

We also assist with:

• Environmental liabilities in the context of bankruptcy proceedings
• Property, natural resources, and sediment remediation
• Toxic torts
• Government and citizen enforcement
• Legal challenges to environmental regulations
• Hazardous waste handling and disposal disputes
• Contract disputes over environmental liabilities