Practice Areas: Environmental Solutions

The lawyers in McGuireWoods' Environmental Solutions Group are experienced in all of the tasks traditionally handled by top law firms - permitting, enforcement defense, rulemaking, legislation, project development, crisis management, and agency liaison, at federal, state and local levels. Our practice, however, is distinguished by a focus on broader client needs, including avoidance of future problems, capitalizing on environmental assets, searching for more sustainable practices, and helping the public understand the benefits of the client’s business and activities.

Many of our lawyers have been practicing environmental law for decades. Our group includes former governmental regulators and lawyers with technical backgrounds in engineering and the natural sciences. By integrating the skills of these group members with the latest technological approaches to the practice of law, we help focus our efforts and our clients on effective ways to solve problems.

Our environmental practice is diverse in subject matter, geography, and the businesses we serve. Some of us concentrate on air, water, solid and hazardous waste, wetlands, and other permitting under federal and state regulatory programs. We have gained wide recognition for results that allow facilities maximum flexibility in meeting legal requirements, with maximum protection for their business and personnel.

We also focus on transactions involving natural resources development or major manufacturing facilities and energy projects. Additionally, we emphasize federal and state legislation and rulemaking, litigation and other dispute resolution to preserve or defend our clients’ positions. We are adept at organizing and managing groups of clients with common regulatory interests for an optimum outcome. In all these areas we routinely use business and tax concepts to optimize project or transaction value.

Our lawyers have extensive experience throughout the United States counseling clients, participating in federal and state administrative proceedings, and resolving disputes in federal and state courts, in every area of environmental and natural resources law. Our representation of clients in Europe, South America, and Asia has honed the tools necessary to represent clients’ needs throughout the world.

Our clients include large and small domestic or international businesses, as well as trade organizations, municipalities, public authorities, developers, and client groups organized to address individual issues or long-term regulatory efforts.

As individuals and team members, we bring a personal and group commitment to each client. We will help you solve your environmental problems quickly, creatively, and cost-effectively, minimize your environmental risks, and enhance the value of your business transactions.

More specific details regarding our various environmental practices are described in the links below. Some members of the group also are a part of McGuireWoods' Environmental Litigation practice.

Representative Work

The following matters reflect the group's capabilities across a range of industries and issues:

  • Represented a Charlottesville-based private equity company in the acquisition of an international water filtration and treatment company based in Cleveland, Ohio. The transaction consisted of a very large stock purchase agreement, which involved a thorough, multi-disciplinary due diligence process
  • Represented Richardson Electronics, Ltd., in connection with the sale of 220 acres of land in Kane County, Illinois for use as a residential development, commercial development and a golf course. The sales price was approximately $11,000,000. Due to the existence of land use controls on a portion of the property and our desire to limit any future claims in connection with the site, we negotiated the imposition of restrictions in the form of a recreational easement over the potentially contaminated property which prohibited its use for anything other than a golf course or similar recreational purposes.
  • Represented an international religious organization by obtaining approval of certain environmental impact waivers from Montgomery County, Md., for a major expansion of the largest mosque in the metropolitan Washington area, which is located in a special environmental watershed protection area.
  • Represented one of the largest Lutheran congregations in suburban Maryland, by obtaining unprecedented relief under the Damascus Area Master Plan for Montgomery County, Md., to permit a major expansion of the church's facilities. The county and the Maryland-National Capital Park and Planning Commission agreed to the future granting of several extraordinary environmental impact waivers for a large expansion of the church's facilities into a Class IV stream valley, and to construct and maintain (at the county's expense) a public parking lot on an adjacent property, saving the church several million dollars in environmental remediation and construction costs.
  • Coordinated the environmental due diligence and negotiated terms of environmental provisions in deal documents as a part of the overall representation of the purchaser in the acquisition of a chain of fast food restaurants with one hundred six locations throughout five states in the southeast.
  • Coordinated the environmental due diligence and negotiated terms environmental terms and conditions in a $1.2 billion acquisition of a nuclear power plant.
  • Coordinated responses and resolved issues with regard to the environmental due diligence as a part of the overall representation of the purchaser in the sale of the stock of a developer with twenty-nine industrial office park properties located throughout a four state area in the east.
  • Provided comprehensive environmental due diligence and negotiated preliminary asset purchase agreement terms and conditions for short-listed bidders in their proposed acquisitions of four separate multi-billion dollar coal-fired utility asset bundles located on multiple sites in seven states.
  • Coordinated the environmental due diligence and negotiated terms of environmental provisions in deal documents as a part of the overall representation in the potential purchase of a chain of gas stations with approximately fifty locations throughout a seven state area in the east.