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.”

• Providing key support to the Independent Corporate Compliance Monitor and Auditor for Volkswagen (VW), as part of VW’s criminal plea agreement (including a $2.8 billion penalty) stemming from the company’s scheme to sell vehicles designed to cheat on U.S. emissions tests.

• Leading the allocation process at the Portland Harbor Superfund Site, the largest site west of the Mississippi River, with estimated cleanup costs exceeding $2.5 billion. The site involves about 250 parties, ongoing cleanup work, and negotiations, federal litigation, Natural Resource Damage claims, and nearly 100 parties in an allocation process.

• Representing clients facing cutting-edge legal issues, such as PFAS liability and regulations; plastic waste; climate change; environmental justice; environmental, social, and governance (ESG); circular economy and sustainability; product stewardship; and EHS issues related to the covid pandemic.

• Defending client Waste Connections, Inc. in one of the country’s largest nuisance and personal injury cases re its Jefferson Parish Landfill near New Orleans, Louisiana. B&D secured the dismissal of 261 individual plaintiffs for failure to comply with their discovery obligations, and the case is set for a unique, two-week causation trial in January 2022.