Beveridge & Diamond, P.C.

Beveridge & Diamond has developed in symbiosis with significant environmental legislation throughout the last quarter of the 20th century and early 21st, giving its clients insider access to the complexities of environmental law, natural resource law, land use, and litigation. Government and corporate clients alike reap the benefits of B&D's specialties in alternative dispute resolution, high-stakes environmental and commercial litigation, toxic torts, and white collar defense.

EPA Roots

In 1974 a group of lawyers that included the first Administrator of the EPA and the first Commissioner of the NYS Department of Environmental Conservation formed a firm to address the needs of companies and municipalities relating to emerging environmental law. From those not-so-humble beginnings, the firm's rise in the area of environmental law has continued, making the firm highly sought after by clients and jobseekers alike. Chambers ranks Beveridge & Diamond nationally and regionally in California, Massachusetts, New York, DC, Texas, and Washington State.

From Wetlands to Waste

Complex environmental litigation, regulatory, transactional, and legislative matters at the federal and state levels are de rigueur for B&D. As the No. 1 firm in Vault’s Environmental Law Practice Area ranking, B&D is well known for its decades and depth of experience advising numerous industry sectors on environmental law and its application to complex businesses worldwide. The firm has also been recognized by the likes of Chambers, The Legal 500, Best Lawyers, Latinvex, and Super Lawyers. 

The firm is well practiced in the intricacies of environmental law, handling matters as diverse as biotechnology, ESG, Environmental Justice wetlands, products regulation, environmental auditing, endangered species, toxic chemicals, Superfund, pesticides regulation, food safety, hazardous and solid waste, Clean Air, Act Clean Water Act, and risk assessment. State—or national—boundaries don’t stop B&D, which is home to an active international environmental practice. B&D does whatever it takes, including settlements, dispositions, trials, and appeals for its clients.

Commitment to DE&I

DE&I is a business imperative at B&D. The firm is committed to advancing diversity, equity, and inclusion in the legal profession, and to partnering with the firm’s clients and communities to accomplish that goal. B&D participates in Leadership Council on Legal Diversity's (LCLD) Fellows, Pathfinder, and Summer Clerk programs and is a Firm Affiliate Network member of the Minority Corporate Counsel Association (MCCA), providing regular support of MCCA programs. The firm is Mansfield 5.0 Plus Certified by Diversity Lab and has participated in the Mansfield Rule since the Mansfield 2.0 pilot. In 2022, MCCA awarded B&D its George B. Vashon Innovator Award, given to a law firm with fewer than 500 attorneys that has “led the way with innovative best practices to assist diverse attorneys.”

• B&D served as Deputy Monitor, Emissions & Environmental, in the implementation of the criminal plea agreement arising from the Volkswagen diesel emissions scandal.

• B&D successfully represented the City of Newark, NJ in defense of a federal citizen suit under the SDWA (and the associated Lead and Copper Rule) brought by NRDC after Newark allegedly exceeded the federal lead action limit on lead in drinking water in 2017. This precedent-setting settlement will shape future interpretation of the federal Lead and Copper Rule and likely ends environmental group efforts to duplicate throughout the country the legal claims brought to bear in Flint, MI.

• B&D counsels and trains national utilities and municipalities on incorporating environmental justice principles into project development, including development of company-wide environmental justice policies and initiatives, Title VI of the Civil Rights Act investigations counseling, reputational risk mitigation, and best practices for external community engagement.

• B&D provides ongoing strategic counseling to a global Fortune 50 technology company recognized as an industry leader on sustainability. Our support covers corporate sustainability goal-setting, annual reporting on progress toward goals including through the company’s sustainability report, developing internal processes and structures to support a consistent approach to data collection and external communications, as well as legal reviews of sustainability ratings and rankings submissions and corporate filings.

   

• Tier 1, Environmental Regulatory, 2023 – The Legal 500
• Band 1, Environment, 2024 – Chambers USA
• Environmental Law Firm of the Year, 2024 – Best Lawyers
• Mansfield Rule 6.0 Certified, 2023—Diversity Lab
• George B. Vashon Innovator Award, 2022, 2023 – Minority Corporate Counsel Association