Practice Capabilities
Loeb & Loeb LLP's Environmental Group, a versatile, multidisciplinary practice, assists clients in a wide range of transactional and litigation matters. Our practice encompasses transactional services, litigation services and water law.
Our transactional services include assisting buyers, sellers and lending institutions in dealing with the complications surrounding environmental contamination. We assist in performing environmental due diligence, evaluating environmental risks and facilitating the process through creative structuring of transactions including the use of new insurance products. We have overseen environmental due diligence in connection with hundreds of real estate investments and financings, corporate acquisitions and real estate foreclosures.
We are familiar with environmental investigations and remediation techniques and have extensive technical experience in hazardous waste management. Our experience allows us to assess quickly the risk associated with a given transaction, and to mitigate that risk through a variety of techniques such as indemnity agreements, prospective purchaser agreements and environmental insurance policies. We have represented major real estate developers and public real estate investment trusts in transactions involving environmentally impaired properties.
For clients who already own contaminated sites, we retain and supervise environmental consultants, negotiate the scope of environmental investigations and clean-ups with regulatory agencies, and assist in procuring "no further action" letters from government agencies. We also assist clients in seeking the cooperation of other potentially responsible parties and in obtaining insurance coverage to cover the costs of environmental investigations and cleanups.
We have established productive relationships with regulatory agencies at both the staff and policy levels and regularly communicate with the Environmental Protection Agency, the California Regional Water Quality Control Boards, the California Department of Toxic Substances Control, the South Coast Air Quality Management District, the New York Department of Environmental Conservation, the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection, the Illinois Environmental Protection Agency and the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Resources.
Our environmental attorneys assist in the development and entitlement of real estate for commercial, industrial, residential or mixed-use purposes throughout the United States. Serving a broad spectrum of clients from real estate developers to financial institutions, we are highly skilled in evaluating, negotiating and obtaining project entitlements and approvals and in creating the legal structure for projects.
Our environmental practice encompasses the development, from initial subdivision through sale, of large, master planned, mixed-use development communities. We have assisted clients with applications for tentative maps, development and participation agreements, specific plans and zoning changes. We have appeared on behalf of clients seeking subdivision approval, zoning changes, permits, authorizations and agreements from city councils, county boards of supervisors, planning commissions, public works commissions, zoning administrators, boards of zoning appeal, the California Coastal Commission and the California Department of Fish and Game.
Our collective environmental experience involves both the championship of and objection to land use projects. We also prosecute and defend administrative actions before government agencies, public utilities and other regulatory bodies.
Our environmental attorneys regularly provide development analyses of complicated projects or problematic sites to developers and advise financial institutions as to the quality and viability of the real estate securing their liens.
On the litigation side, our environmental attorneys have represented clients in regulatory enforcement and cost recovery proceedings and in prosecuting or defending, through judgment, private cleanup cost actions. Our firm successfully challenged the listing of a Superfund site on EPA's National Priorities List and has represented clients associated with numerous Superfund sites including the San Fernando Valley Superfund Site, the San Gabriel Valley Superfund Site, the Casmalia Superfund Site in Santa Barbara County, California, the Operating Industries Inc. Superfund site in Monterey Park, California and the Omega Superfund Site in Whittier, California. In addition to Superfund litigation, we have defended toxic tort and California Proposition 65 cases. We have also defended clients in environmental crimes cases.
While we are aggressive advocates for clients who choose to litigate, our litigators explore the potential for creative solutions which will minimize or obviate the need to pursue litigation while, at the same time, achieving results which benefit the client. For example, we have successfully worked with other parties and insurance carriers to cooperatively investigate sites and clean-up sites. We have also represented groups of potentially responsible parties at hazardous wastes sites allowing us to minimize litigation costs while, at the same time, achieving significant cost savings for our clients. For example, at the Casmalia Superfund Site, we represented over 200 parties and successfully negotiated settlements which reduced our clients' liability by about forty-five percent. We also represent over 70 de minimis parties at the Omega Superfund Site and a similar number at the OII Superfund Site.
We also represent insureds in filing environmental claims for defense and indemnification costs under comprehensive general liability insurance policies, and have successfully secured defenses and settlements for numerous clients. Insurance coverage has proven to be an important vehicle for reducing the cost of litigation and, ultimately, the cleanup of contaminated properties. Our Land Use practice combines seasoned real estate transactional attorneys with experienced Land Use litigators. We present written and oral arguments at administrative law hearings and other land use proceedings before a variety of governmental bodies. Similarly, we prosecute and defend judicial actions in federal and state courts in connection with statutes such as the Endangered Species Act, the California Environmental Quality Act, and the Subdivision Map Act. We represent clients in eminent domain and inverse condemnation matters. Upon request, our attorneys have conducted investigations and prepared findings and recommendations, for industry trade associations concerning specific real estate issues.
In addition to traditional land use and environmental cases, we have handled a wide range of water supply, groundwater management and flood control matters and water rights litigation. Our clients include large agricultural concerns as well as water supply and management agencies.