Top best Environmental And Natural Resources Lawyers in Boston near me

Peter F. Durning focuses his practice in the areas of environmental litigation, enforcement defense, land use and permitting, with a specific focus on water and wetlands related matters. His experience includes adjudicatory hearings before the MassDEP, zoning disputes, judicial review of administrative proceedings, and appellate work. He recently prevailed in an adjudicatory hearing on behalf of the developer of a 50-lot residential development located near wetlands and has participated in a range of alternative dispute resolution activities, including arbitrations, multi-party settlement negotiations, and mediations.. Mr. Durning handles a range of wetlands adjudicatory appeals, solid waste site assignment hearings, zoning cases, citizen suits regarding stormwater discharges, U.S. EPA enforcement actions, permitting, business and transactional consulting, as well as local, state and federal permit proceedings and appeals. His clients include public companies, high net worth individuals, investors in renewable energy facilities, small businesses and municipalities.. Mr. Durning is active in the Environmental Law Section of the Boston Bar Association, and was co-chair of the Environmental Litigation Committee from 2012 to 2014. Mr. Durning is a member of the Environmental Business Council as well as the Real Estate Bar Association.

Mr. Orsmond focuses on land use, environmental, and complex insurance matters in transactional, permitting, and litigation work.  His clients include families and individuals, non-profit corporations, Fortune 500 companies, closely-held companies, schools and universities, municipalities, insurance regulators, and liquidating trusts.  Mr. Orsmond works closely with his clients to devise and implement strategies for achieving their goals.  His work includes advising institutional clients on proper regulatory and governance practices, negotiating complex agreements, drafting legislation and regulations, obtaining permits, pursuing and defending administrative appeals, advising permit-granting authorities, leading due diligence efforts, negotiating and closing sophisticated real estate deals, defending against zoning enforcement actions, and representing clients in litigation.

Mr. Last represents clients with respect to air, water and hazardous materials regulatory matters involving the United States Environmental Protection Agency and state and local governmental agencies.  He also represents clients with respect to solid waste management facility siting and operational issues and developers in connection with obtaining environmental approvals and performing environmental impact review for major projects.  Given his experience with both environmental and real estate issues, Mr. Last has been a leader with respect to Brownfields redevelopment initiatives, including the creative use of insurance products to control risk and facilitate redevelopment opportunities.. Mr. Last has advised businesses, colleges and universities and lending institutions regarding controlling environmental liability and performing environmental due diligence.  He has also worked with colleges and universities with respect to compliance auditing and environmental management systems.  He has assisted hospitals and healthcare systems nationwide with respect to asbestos identification, management and abatement issues and has been a leader with respect to legal issues associated with mold.  He has advised banks and other lenders with respect to managing potential environmental liability associated with loan origination and workouts.. Mr. Last has mediated and facilitated the resolution of two party and multi-party disputes involving environmental and real estate issues, as well as commercial disputes.

Mr. James is Chairman of Rackemann, Sawyer & Brewster's Affordable Housing and Community Development Practice Group.  Mr. James has over 25 years of experience in the area of real estate development and finance, with a particular focus on affordable housing and community development. Mr. James represents a diverse array of clients, including towns and municipalities, institutional, public and quasi-public lenders, and public, for profit, and non-profit developers.

In 34 years of practicing environmental and maritime law, Harlan has always been the kind of attorney who gets out from behind his desk, puts on boots and walks the client’s site or factory floor or dons a float coat and boards a vessel to see his client’s technology in use at sea. He believes the best way to advise a client on siting a facility, complying with environmental or maritime regulations, resolving enforcement matters, re-developing a brownfield site, or structuring a transaction is get to know the client’s business: how it works and its business goals – so he may then stand shoulder-to-shoulder with the client in helping realize those goals. Harlan’s long-time clients understand and expect this. When the environmental vice president at one of Harlan’s client companies enrolled in a British Standards Institution course covering the implementation of ISO-14000 series environmental management systems, he called Harlan and said “of course you’ll take the course with me?”  The only lawyer and non-engineer in the course, after several, study-intensive 14 hour days, Harlan passed the examination and became certified in that discipline.. Harlan feels strongly that it’s important to impart to the next generation of environmental lawyers the lessons he’s acquired by his participation in major appellate and other court cases which helped shape the law of coastal development, environmental impact reporting, water and air quality, and wetlands protection, including over fifteen years as a lead counsel in the matters dealing with the cleanup of Boston Harbor. He does this in part by serving as an adjunct professor for the Law Schools at Boston College and at Roger Williams University. He has also written and taught courses in the United States, Canada and the United Kingdom. His writings include all editions of the Fisheries and Wildlife Law chapter in MCLE’s Massachusetts Environmental Law treatise. In 2011, University of Maine will publish Maritime Cabotage Laws and Wind Power Installations in the Gulf of Maine, a chapter co-authored by Harlan.Since 2001, Harlan has also exercised his environmental and maritime skills as an officer in the U.S. Coast Guard Auxiliary. His duties include the pre-arrival screening and shipboard inspections of foreign flag vessels for Sector Boston Port State control.  If you want to see Harlan in his real “habitat”, however, watch for him fishing with his son Ryan, sailing with his wife Kathy or simply hanging out in the woods with Lucy, the family setter.

I have practiced environmental law for over 30 years.  While my practice is mainly focused in Massachusetts, because I have clients with operations located out of state, involving federal law, such as superfund and RCRA, I advise clients on these matters throughout the United States. My work has ranged from negotiating a biomass feedstock agreement for a project in Hawaii, to negotiating superfund settlements for sites located in Louisiana and clean up contracts for sites located in New Jersey and throughout the US.  I like to think that my clients are solving environmental problems.  Because they are at the interface between environmental problems, the public and business, they face a wide array of issues.  My job is to help to navigate that maze in a cost effective, thoughtful and responsible manner.  The end result is to produce results for today's businesses and tomorrow's environment.  The breadth and depth of my experience is demonstrated by the environmental due diligence I performed on the acquisition by my client of over 50 hazardous waste facilities located in thirty states, resulting in my client becoming the largest hazardous waste company in North America.  Most recently my practice has focused on development of renewable energy facilities, ranging for solar projects on landfills to utility scale biomass facilities.  I have been very involved with the proposed regulatory changes for the development of anaroebic digestion facilities in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts.  I hope to continue to participate in the development of domestic renewable, cleaner energy resources to reduce dependence on foreign oil.  In addition, I continue to represent a wide array of clients on superfund, c. 21E, RCRA, solid waste, recycling, environmental review, zoning, clean up contracting and related issues.

I am a partner in the real estate and environmental law practice group and bring extensive experience in a wide range of environmental law, regulation and policy development. I served for almost 10 years as the General Counsel of the Massachusetts Department of Environmental Protection (MassDEP) prior to entering private practice.  I have considerable experience with state, local and federal government operations and in practicing before administrative agencies, local boards and adjudicatory tribunals.   I was responsible for the review and counseling provided on all regulatory, policy development and enforcement matters at MassDEP, an agency implementing more than 60 statutes and regulatory programs that businesses interact with every day.  I regularly represent clients in administrative matters including regulatory interpretation and compliance, strategic permitting and licensing, enforcement and adjudication.

Buchanan & Associates was created by Jamy Buchanan Madeja as a small, enviornmental and land use focused speciality law practice after she served as General Counsel for Environmental Affairs to Governor William F. Weld, preceded by a time as an associate at MintzLevin, in Boston. Ms. Madeja provides sophisticated, experienced counsel for clients ranging from neighborhood associates to development entities, usually with envioronmental permitting or enforcement needs or concerns throughout Massachusetts.  She has been recognized by her peers as one of the Top 50 Women in Law in Massachusetts and multiple times as a SuperLawyer in her practice area.  She is married with two children and lives in Rockport, Massachusetts.