Jennifer represents clients in a broad range of environmental and energy issues, including environmental civil enforcement and litigation matters, as well as regulatory and transactional issues for energy and manufacturing companies. Her practice focuses on all aspects of regulatory and litigation counseling in the fields of environmental, natural resource, and energy law, with a particular emphasis on emerging air issues. She draws upon her experience in business and engineering to incorporate regulatory compliance into sound business strategies. Jennifer is a “people person” who is devoted to her clients, prides herself on her responsiveness to their issues, and will make her clients’ problems her own until they are successfully resolved.
Whether in Pennsylvania or across the country, she dedicates herself to her clients, her profession, and her community, helping clients understand the potential impact, strengths and weaknesses, and business opportunities of emerging energy, environmental and greenhouse gas issues. She has shared speaking engagements with the White House special assistant to the president for energy and climate change.
Jennifer's clients include energy companies (large and small), textile manufacturers, battery recycling facilities, iron and steel manufacturers, petroleum refiners, chemical producers, chapter 11 bankruptcy debtors and creditors, landfill operators, and municipalities and municipal redevelopment authorities. She has represented clients in the international climate arena as well as in the state courts of Pennsylvania, Ohio and West Virginia; in the U.S. District Courts throughout the Midwest and the Eastern United States; and in the U.S. Circuit Courts of Appeal for the Third Circuit and the District of Columbia.
Additionally, Jennifer is an adjunct professor of law at her alma mater, the University of Pittsburgh School of Law where she teaches Climate Change and the Law.
Energy and Greenhouse Gas Experience
Jennifer has argued before administrative tribunals on emerging Clean Air Act issues involving greenhouse gases, developed standardized trading agreements for carbon projects in California and across the United States, and performed due diligence on major acquisitions in the Marcellus Shale play. As well as being a delegate at the Paris climate talks and other international climate negotiations, she has led or participated on teams in some of the most significant air appeals and hearings on air aggregation issues for the oil and gas industry in Pennsylvania.
Environmental Litigation Experience
Jennifer also represents clients in a broad range of environmental issues, including environmental civil enforcement and litigation matters concerning the Clean Air Act, Superfund, RCRA, and the Clean Water Act, as well as various state law equivalents. She has been involved with groundbreaking air permitting aggregation litigation as well as several successful Title V permitting challenges for Pennsylvania clients, along with defending toxic tort and property damage claims based on the discharge of hazardous pollutants into the air, soil, surface and groundwater. She has researched and selected, retained and supervised numerous experts with regard to hydrology, fate and transport, and toxicology issues associated with third party property damage to sediment, groundwater and surface water for a major multinational manufacturing company. She is experienced in both defending and taking expert depositions with regard to hydrology, fate and transport, and toxicology issues.
Environmental Due Diligence Experience
Jennifer is a key player in due diligence on major domestic and international acquisitions that include real estate and/or environmental risk. From single property real estate transactions to multiple parcel mega-deals, she has reviewed and evaluated environmental assessments involving facilities at diverse locations around the world, and she helps clients understand the pros and cons of alternative provisions and different deal structures for doing business and purchasing real estate. Jennifer advises clients, including REITs, with the purchase of real estate, on qualifying as bona fide purchasers under CERCLA or meeting the test for innocent landowner and contiguous property owner defenses, and obtaining liability protection for buyers of contaminated property under various state programs.
