Environmental Law

Zelle Hofmann attorneys have extensive experience in numerous areas of environmental law and environmental litigation, both domestically and internationally. We are staffed with some of the best environmental attorneys and litigators in the country, who focus on promoting clients’ businesses, minimizing costs, ensuring compliance, minimizing exposure and managing risk, and, where necessary, winning the case.  This knowledge and experience includes environmental enforcement and compliance under U.S., international, and other legal systems' law. Zelle Hofmann attorneys have served on leadership committees and other executive committees in international environmental organizations and in public interest environmental law firms. Specific areas of environmental expertise include litigation matters and matters involving air quality, water quality, solid and hazardous wastes, toxic chemicals, acid rain and acid mine drainage claims, groundwater contamination, underground storage tanks, corrective action and remedial action plans, contribution, agency enforcement actions, global warming, and energy conservation, among numerous other areas.  Zelle Hofmann attorneys also have extensive experience in the area of environmental insurance coverage disputes. 

Zelle Hofmann's managing partner in Washington D.C., Durwood Zaelke, is the Director of the International Environmental Law Program at the American University law school, and also has taught at Yale Law School, Duke Law School, and Johns Hopkins.  He co-founded the Program on Governance for Sustainable Development at the University of California, Santa Barbara's Bren School of Environmental Science & Management, where he serves as a Bren Scholar and Co-Director. In 1989, Mr. Zaelke founded the Center for International Environmental Law ("CIEL"), a premier public interest international environmental firm, in Washington, D.C. and Geneva. He served as President of CIEL until 2003.

Mr. Zaelke is the author of the leading law school textbook entitled International Environmental Law & Policy (Foundation Press 2nd ed. 2002) (1,500 pages) (with Hunter & Salzman), which has been used in more than 115 universities around the world. In addition to a TREATY SUPPLEMENT (Foundation Press 2002) (380 pages), and TEACHERS MANUAL (350 pages), other books by Mr. Zaelke include: Van Dyke, Zaelke & Hewison, eds., FREEDOM FOR THE SEAS: A NEW LOOK AT OCEAN GOVERNANCE (Island Press 1993), co-winner of the Smithsonian's 1994 Sprout Award for best book on international environmental affairs; and Zaelke, Housman & Orbach, eds., TRADE AND THE ENVIRONMENT: LAW, ECONOMICS, AND POLICY (Island Press 1995), winner of a special award at the 1997 Buenos Aires International Book Fair for its Spanish version, entitled COMERCIO INTERNACIONAL Y MEDIO AMBIENTE: DERECHO, ECONOMIA Y POLITICA (Espacio Editorial, Buenos Aires, June 1995) (translation by Eugenia Bec). Other publications include Zaelke & Cameron, Global Warming and Climate Change An Overview of the International Legal Process, 5 AM. U. J. INT'L L. & POL'Y 249 (Winter 1990), selected as one of the best law review articles of the year and reprinted in 22 LAND USE & ENVT'L L. REV. (1991); reprinted in Italian in FUTURO SOSTENIBLE: EFFETTOSERRA 36 (1990).

In 2003, Mr. Zaelke published INDUSTRY GENIUS: INVENTIONS AND PEOPLE PROTECTING THE CLIMATE AND FRAGILE OZONE LAYER (Greenleaf UK, 2003) (with Dr. Steven O. Andersen). INDUSTRY GENIUS presents the inventive genius behind technological breakthroughs by ten global companies, including Honda, Seko-Epson, ST Microelectronics, Trane, and Alcoa Aluminum, and suggests how forward looking companies can pursue sustainable business strategies, avoid potentially costly liabilities, and improve their relations with customers, shareholders, and suppliers.

Articles & Presentations

• Strengthening the Montreal Protocol: Insurance Against Abrupt Climate Change
• Industry Genius: Inventions and People Protecting the Climate and Fragile Ozone Layer
• Making Law Work: Environmental Compliance & Sustainable Development

News

• Zaelke Plays Key Role in Broadening the Montreal Protocol to Address Global Warming
• Zaelke moderates ABA panel on Environment and Rule of Law
• Trial Victory for BP in Defense of City of Pomona Claim
• Summary Judgment Granted in favor of BP in Motors Insurance Company v. BP