EXPERIENCE

Julia’s representative experience includes:

• She has advised chemical manufacturers and processors on various regulatory and litigation matters involving the detection of chemicals in the human body, including numerous matters involving long-chain perfluoroalkyl acids (PFAAs) and substances that may degrade to form them, such as PFOS and PFOA
• She advised a major automobile manufacturer in connection with its vehicle service and recall campaigns. Recent work entailed leading a large, multi-disciplinary team to obtain approvals and assure compliance at the dealer-level with a complex web of air, waste, zoning, building, and fire code regulatory compliance issues across more than 20 states and addressing waste issues raised by a separate component part recall.  
• She advised an aircraft industry company in connection with an investigation by the Chemical Safety and Hazard Investigation Board and related enforcement matters before the DOT’s Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration stemming from the company’s disposal of unspent oxygen generators as hazardous waste that were alleged to have contributed to a fire and evacuation situation. 
• She advised a major automobile manufacturer in addressing federal, state, and local regulatory impediments to the introduction of its new mobility technologies.
• She has advised chemical and consumer product companies on litigation matters that implicate regulatory requirements. Recent examples include on a False Claims Act case alleging TSCA violations on which she and the team prevailed in the D.C. Circuit upholding dismissal and construction product liability cases involving formaldehyde exposure for which Julia managed advocacy with the CPSC to recognize that the client’s product is not a “consumer product” and to respond to complaints filed on the CPSC’s saferproducts.gov portal through plaintiffs’ law firm.
• She has advised various individual companies by leading special investigations into product- and manufacturing-related risks pertaining to the intersection between regulatory, public policy, and litigation. For example, Julia led a multi-year TSCA auditing effort for 3M Company that resulted an innovative settlement with US EPA involving pre-negotiated penalties. As another example, she is currently representing a major automotive manufacturer in connection with a TSCA Inventory enforcement matter involving issues of first impression pertaining to the knowledge requirement for a chemical “user” and the appropriate circumstances for enhancement of gravity-based penalties.
• She has advised various investment banks on private equity and M&A transactions in which the circumstances warrant performing specialized chemical-related diligence, with a particular focus on future material obligations that may arise under, for example, new chemical laws, such as the EU’s REACH regulation and Biocides Product Directive, as well as the potential for significant business impacts if these laws end up either banning a chemical that is critical to the target company or stigmatizing that chemical in a manner which may force deselection in the marketplace.
• She has advised numerous clients seeking to defend their products in a variety of venues, including new product reviews/approvals by regulators, recall actions by governments, scientific review processes by United Nations organizations and under international treaties, and attacks by environmental and other non-governmental organizations. As one example, Julia is currently representing a major vaccine manufacturer seeking to defend its product after a scientifically questionable World Health Organization review process led to recommendation of another vaccine. As another example, Julia recently concluded a successful defense of a consumer products company on two separate matters: (1) a US EPA enforcement matter arising from the company’s importation of products containing prohibited ozone depleting substances and (2) a threatened citizen’s suit by a national environmental group for the company’s failure to submit TSCA 8(e) risk reports for data that resulted in the company’s decision to recall various lead-containing children’s products.

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