Environmental Law

Schenck, Price, Smith & King maintains an active environmental law practice serving commercial and industrial clients in a wide variety of regulatory, litigation, and insurance matters before state and federal courts and regulatory agencies. The firm represents many clients ranging from individuals and small enterprises to international corporations.

Our environmental regulatory practice assists clients in administrative matters concerning hazardous and solid waste regulation, including ISRA (formerly ECRA), Regulation of Underground Storage Tanks, RCRA Compliance and Corrective Actions, Spill Act Directives and other compliance and enforcement actions before the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection ("DEP") and the United States Environmental Protection Agency ("EPA"). We also possess expertise in assisting clients identified by DEP or EPA as potentially responsible parties ("PRPs") pursuant to CERCLA ("Superfund") and other similar statutes at contaminated sites.

Our environmental attorneys are experienced in helping clients to obtain permits and agency approvals for air and water discharges, wetlands delineation, recycling, landfill closure, spill reporting and underground storage tank registration and removal. We are experienced, as well, in counseling and representing clients before local boards and agencies, in fulfilling environmental regulatory requirements for site plan and construction approvals.

In addition, a number of our transactional attorneys possess special expertise in providing advice to clients on environmental issues relating to lease transactions, contractual indemnity, lender liability and environmental audits.

In the litigation area, the firm has an active practice dealing with environmental cost recovery actions (from the perspective of both prosecution and defense, including defense against government-instituted actions), insurance coverage actions for cleanup of environmental contamination, toxic tort litigation, and other environmental cases.

Our representation in these matters involves everything from litigating responsibility among successive owners and tenants at contaminated sites to cost allocations and de minimis settlements at large multi-party sites to prosecuting declaratory judgment actions against insurers for response costs at all types of contaminated sites.

The firm's toxic tort litigation practice focuses upon defending corporations and other business entities in personal injury cases arising out of exposure to asbestos, chemical contaminants and other hazardous materials. Our attorneys have obtained excellent results for clients by applying their experience and expertise in both procedural and substantive issues in these complex cases.

Our litigation attorneys are committed to and experienced in adopting strategies that are uniquely tailored to the needs of the individual client. Our policy is to keep the client personally involved and fully informed as a case progresses. Following these principles, we have been able to establish a reputation for excellent results while minimizing the transaction costs in these cases.

(Note: Examples cited above are for illustration only. Results in any particular litigation will depend in large part upon the facts of the specific case.)

For Additional Information Contact Richard J. Conway