David represents clients throughout the United States in all aspects of state and federal environmental law. His practice can be divided into three areas: (1) environmental issues related to permitting, transactions, and general operations, (2) assisting lending institutions to evaluate and manage environmental risk, and (3) environmental auditing and criminal defense.
Despite a specialized practice in environmental law, David also has experience as a generalist. During his career as a lawyer, he has negotiated corporate transactions, represented municipalities issuing bonds to finance public projects, and assisted a minority shareholder to protect his rights in an internal corporate dispute. He prides himself on striving to understand the unique business pressures and opportunities confronting his clients, and delivering legal advice attuned to those competitive forces. David recognizes that clients are not only looking for abstract answers, they also need solutions – sound legal advice that is also sound business advice. He serves as the Progam Chair for the Environmen, Energy & Natural Resources Law Committee of the ABA's Business Law Section.
David represents clients throughout the United States in all aspects of state and federal environmental law. His practice can be divided into three areas: (1) environmental issues related to permitting, transactions, and general operations, (2) assisting lending institutions to evaluate and manage environmental risk, and (3) environmental auditing and criminal defense.
Despite a specialized practice in environmental law, David also has experience as a generalist. During his career as a lawyer, he has negotiated corporate transactions, represented municipalities issuing bonds to finance public projects, and assisted a minority shareholder to protect his rights in an internal corporate dispute. He prides himself on striving to understand the unique business pressures and opportunities confronting his clients, and delivering legal advice attuned to those competitive forces. David recognizes that clients are not only looking for abstract answers, they also need solutions – sound legal advice that is also sound business advice. He serves as the Progam Chair for the Environmen, Energy & Natural Resources Law Committee of the ABA's Business Law Section.
From negotiating hazardous waste disposal/transportation agreements, to advising clients on PSD permitting, to coordinating multi-facility environmental due diligence, to general regulatory law questions, David assists clients with the environmental challenges they face.
David has helped numerous clients bring contaminated properties through the Alabama Brownfield Redevelopment and Voluntary Cleanup Program and similar programs in Mississippi, Georgia, and Texas. In connection with these projects, he has worked with consultants to develop cost-effective, risk-based remediation strategies.
David assists lending institutions in understanding the environmental issues they face in their industry. Working closely with in-house environmental risk management departments, outside environmental consultants, and others, he advises and coordinates environmental due diligence for lending institutions in branch site acquisitions, including compliance with EPA's "All Appropriate Inquiry" regulations (40 C.F.R Part 312), and helps evaluate potentially contaminated collateral. He is currently serving as a member of the ASTM E1527 Task Group that is evaluating changes to the Phase I ESA Standard.
In the past five years, David has been involved in two of the largest federal criminal environmental cases in the United States. Recently, he helped to defend a former division president of W.R. Grace, who was a defendant in a multi-count criminal Clean Air Act case in Missoula, Montana that was described as one of the most significant environmental criminal prosecutions in history.