Environment, Land & Resources

Latham’s highly respected Environment, Land & Resources Practice represents a full spectrum of clients across administrative and regulatory proceedings, enforcement, litigation, transactions, and legislative matters.

Drawing on broad capabilities and a deep bench of experienced practitioners, we counsel and represent multinational corporations, project developers, investors and lenders throughout the world in every kind of environmental matter, from air and water quality, chemical and product regulation, contaminated properties and land use permits, to complex commercial environmental litigation, toxic tort class actions, environmental insurance, climate change, and energy transition matters. 

Many of our lawyers are active in legislative, regulatory and policy developments at regional, national, and global levels.  The team includes numerous practitioners who have served as senior government officials in various capacities, including with the White House, the Council on Environmental Quality, the US Environmental Protection Agency, the US Department of the Interior, and the US Department of Justice. We routinely draw on this experience to help clients navigate complex agency rulemakings, win approvals for energy and infrastructure projects, obtain new chemical and product approvals, and resolve environmental investigations, compliance, enforcement, and litigation matters across industries.

Our land use permitting and entitlement team regularly negotiates on behalf of clients with federal, state, and local regulators, consults with American Indian tribes, and helps clients manage complex stakeholder relationships. We engage federal and state government leadership on policy and permitting relating to conventional and renewable energy projects and energy infrastructure siting issues of all kinds, including power generation, transmission, pipelines, and transportation projects.

For transactional clients, we work directly with our corporate, finance, and tax colleagues to structure transactions in the manner most appropriate to the level of environmental risk involved. We draw on a wide range of experience with contaminated sites, permitting and approvals, occupational safety and health, as well as process safety. We have developed specialized industry knowledge of chemistries and complex goods and supply chains as well as the overlay of the agendas of regulators, activists, and the plaintiffs’ bar.  We have a deep stable of consultants with whom our practitioners regularly collaborate to perform analyses, modeling, and other projections that can inform our clients in valuing assets, structuring transactions, and to minimize liabilities and risks.