Our team has comprehensive experience in such diverse matters as RCRA citizen suits, federal and state enforcement cases (both civil and criminal), NEPA litigation, permitting cases, and Superfund and other administrative or judicial proceedings relating to contaminated sites. Nearly every member of the environmental practice group is an experienced litigator; many have handled major US federal court and administrative cases involving significant environmental claims. Our litigation experience ranges from federal NEPA requirements for new biotechnology products to odor enforcement cases brought by state authorities against individual facilities. We handle a wide variety of Superfund litigation matters, and we consistently work with clients on cases against the Department of Justice and state authorities, private cost recovery actions, toxic tort lawsuits, and appellate litigation. For some clients, we serve as national or coordinating counsel on Superfund or other environmental litigation matters, providing strategic support and advice to lawyers throughout the country. For others, the firm may defend an individual enforcement action or litigate a single major case. The group also collaborates closely with the firm's national litigation team when additional resources are needed.
Over time, our attorneys have been part of some important milestones in environmental litigation. We successfully litigated several of the important and novel issues early in the Superfund program and served as litigation counsel in the first administrative trial ever held in an EPA enforcement case under the premanufacture notification provisions of the Toxic Substances Control Act. Since that time, we have maintained a full environmental litigation docket; more recently, we have served as lead defense counsel in nationwide product liability litigation concerning allegedly hazardous materials, and we are lead counsel in RCRA citizen suit litigation in the Northeast involving a geographically extensive and highly complex industrial and environmental setting.