Environmental Law

Farella Braun + Martel's Environmental Law Department offers specialized, high-quality legal services in all areas, including environmental, products, health and safety, and natural resources.  Our practice is among the largest and most experienced in the nation, with more than twenty dedicated environmental compliance counselors, regulatory representatives, litigators and trial attorneys whose collective depth allows us to meet our clients' needs in any engagement, large or small, public or discrete. 

Our Environmental attorneys' experience includes:  

• Compliance counseling, including hazardous waste management, Superfund counseling and representation, environmental permitting, lender liability and facility siting
• Compliance counseling regarding CERCLA, RCRA, FIFRA, TSCA, OPA, EPCRA, Proposition 65 and other federal and state statutes
• Environmental litigation, including the defense of administrative, civil and criminal enforcement actions, class actions, and citizen suits under the Clean Water Act, RCRA, Proposition 65 and other federal and state laws, and the prosecution and defense of complex toxic tort actions and all forms of federal and state cost recovery/contribution actions
• Air quality, including Clean Air Act compliance, new source review, permitting, emissions trading and indoor air quality
• Water quality, including Clean Water Act compliance, storm water management, wastewater treatment, waste discharge requirements and NPDES issues
• Environmental due diligence in corporate and real estate transactions, including Phase I and Phase II site assessments and complex due diligence investigations
• Environmental insurance and indemnification coverage and negotiations
• Brownfields development, including deed restrictions, successor liability, prospective purchaser agreements, covenants not to sue and related issues
• Military Base Re-Use and Closure, including property and authority transfer, remediation, indemnification, and insurance
• Natural resources, including natural resource damage assessment and litigation, wetlands, CEQA, NEPA and water compliance and litigation
• Product stewardship, including strategic planning for regulatory compliance, risk management and litigation avoidance, intellectual property protection, product design critique and product testing programs, products law counseling and coordination of product recalls
• Product liability, including complex products litigation and insurance coverage for product liability claims

Many of our attorneys began their careers with the United States Environmental Protection Agency, the United States Department of Justice Environment and Natural Resources Division or United States Attorneys' Offices.  Several lawyers in the group have advanced professional degrees and experience in engineering and scientific disciplines.  We frequently draw on this experience, together with our private practice experience, business acumen and reputation and credibility with federal, state and local government regulators, enforcement authorities, judges and fellow practitioners, to develop and effectively implement strategies to achieve our client's objectives. 

Because a client's interests in environmental matters often demand expertise in other areas of law, we frequently work with multidisciplinary teams from Farella Braun + Martel's insurance coverage, land use, real estate, construction, employment, tax, corporate, criminal defense and intellectual property practices.  Collaboration with our real estate, insurance coverage and land use practice groups, for instance, allows us to handle brownfields redevelopment sites and military base conversions from "cradle to grave."  The same may be true in working with our Construction Group with respect to publicly or privately financed construction projects.  We are also experienced in working with non-legal professionals from the technical, scientific, medical, legislative and public relations communities to develop client strategies and solutions that crossover to areas beyond the law.

Whether representing a small business or a Fortune 100 corporation, our Environmental Law Department draws on more than 150 years of collective experience to achieve business-oriented, cost-effective solutions, the best evidence of which is the repeat business we receive from clients across all industries, including:

• Agriculture
• Apparel
• Construction
• Contract Services
• Food and Food Processing
• Lending and Investors
• Life Sciences
• Manufacturing
• Pharmaceutical
• Pipeline Transmission
• Quarrying and Mining
• Real Estate Development
• Refining
• Specialty Chemicals
• Technology - Hardware and Software
• Telecommunications
• Transportation
• University and Research Facilities
• Wine