Every so often, practitioners should probably reevaluate where the environmental legal market is going. That reevaluation helps direct all sorts of practice and personal development efforts. Now, in the middle of the shock created by the COVID-19 response, might be one of those times for reevaluation. When we all get back to the office, what will we be doing?

Events affect different lawyers’ practices differently, and this pandemic is not very like anything that has happened during the careers of anyone now practicing. So, in my column for this month’s Legal Intelligencer supplement, Pa. Law Weekly titled “What Next for Environmental Practice?,” I consider the following kinds of new work:

  • Conventional Compliance and Enforcement
  • Private Lapses
  • Back-End Price Negotiation
  • Toxic Tort Litigation
  • Insurance
  • New Priorities

Read the full column here.

 

 

 

Print:
Email this postTweet this postLike this postShare this post on LinkedIn
Photo of David Mandelbaum David Mandelbaum

David G. Mandelbaum represents clients facing problems under environmental laws. He regularly represents clients in lawsuits and also has helped clients achieve satisfactory outcomes through regulatory negotiation or private transactions. A Fellow of the American College of Environmental Lawyers, David teaches Superfund, and…

David G. Mandelbaum represents clients facing problems under environmental laws. He regularly represents clients in lawsuits and also has helped clients achieve satisfactory outcomes through regulatory negotiation or private transactions. A Fellow of the American College of Environmental Lawyers, David teaches Superfund, and Oil and Gas Law in rotation at the Temple University Beasley School of Law as well as an environmental litigation course at Suffolk (Boston) Law School.

Since United States v. Atlas Minerals, the first multi-generator Superfund contribution case to go to trial in 1993, Mr. Mandelbaum has been engaged in matters involving allocation of costs among responsible parties, especially under the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation and Liability Act (CERCLA).  He has tried large cases and resolved others as lead counsel.  He has written, spoken, and taught extensively on the subject.  More recently he also has been engaged to assist lead counsel from this firm and others:

  • to develop cost allocation methodologies;
  • to craft expert testimony in support of a favored methodology (given a definition of “fairness,” why one methodology better tracks it than another);
  • to develop efficient case management approaches; and to assist private allocation as part of the neutral team.

Concentrations

  • Air, water and waste regulation
  • Superfund and contamination
  • Climate change
  • Oil and gas development
  • Water rights