Our firm's Environment, Health and Safety Department provides expertise on both a domestic and international basis to a wide range of corporate, electric utility, industrial, real estate, trade association, financial services, and governmental clients.  We are the only firm in the U.S. with two partners who formerly served as General Counsel of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.  We provide our clients with a full range of environmental litigation, transactional, legislative, regulatory, and counseling services.

Our environmental litigation and crisis management practice represents clients in federal and state courts and administrative agencies throughout the United States.  We handle a variety of complex litigation, including government enforcement actions, litigation between private parties concerning disputes over allocation of responsibility for environmental contamination, and contractual claims for indemnification of environmental remediation costs.  We also represent clients in connection with claims alleging exposure to hazardous materials such as asbestos, silicates, lead, and PCBs.

Willkie attorneys have in-depth experience in negotiating with regulatory officials to achieve mutually acceptable resolutions on environmental contamination issues, including alleged violations of regulatory requirements, and claims in bankruptcy.  Our lawyers have successfully negotiated settlements with government offices in numerous high-value environmental enforcement cases involving air pollution, new source review (NSR) at both state and federal levels, and water and soil contamination.

Our six offices in Europe provide extensive expertise regarding the evolving body of environmental law in the European Union.  This helps us to provide integrated advice to multinational clients with respect to United States and European Union requirements and evolving policies.

On the transactional side of our practice, we advise clients concerning the impact of environmental laws on all types of business and real estate matters.  Working with the firm's mergers and acquisitions, corporate and securities, real estate, real estate securities, structured finance, and public finance attorneys, we undertake due diligence, provide strategic advice, and negotiate and resolve environmental issues arising in asset sales, stock sales, financings, public offerings and numerous other transactions handled by our firm.

Our environmental legislative and regulatory practice entails advocating our clients’ positions to members and staff of the United States Congress as well as various federal, state, and local agencies.  We also advise clients on the potential impact that pending legislation and regulatory initiatives may have on their businesses. 

Our environmental counseling practice involves advising clients on navigating and maintaining compliance with the complicated and ever-changing environmental laws and regulations that govern their businesses, in both the United States and the European Union. We counsel clients on matters concerning air and water pollution, hazardous materials, product labeling, permitting, pesticide registrations, safe drinking water, and environmental impact statements.

Drawing upon our extensive litigation experience in contractual indemnification, cost-recovery, and environmental insurance coverage matters, the Environment, Health and Safety Department offers sophisticated advice on contractual risk allocation, including in-depth analysis of proposed insurance coverage.