<p>Hi, I was wondering if environmental lawyers actually help the environment (aka, regulate environmental policies against companies) or if they are more “help the company look for a loophole so they can continue harming the environment”. I have seen environmental lawyers being defined both ways, so an answer would be wonderful. Thank you.</p>
<p>Most environmental cases have a lawyer on each side. So…</p>
<p>thank you bluedevilmike. i am mostly worried about helping the environment, especially issues involving global climate change (i live in texas and people think that we’re just randomly getting a lot of snow and that it has nothing to do with “global warming” because snow=cold, idiots). i was considering majoring in chemical or environmental engineering and maybe going to law school afterward. i guess its better to just do environmental engineering then to reach my goals. thank you for showing me that environmental lawyers CAN still be environment haters who just want money!</p>
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<p>As per the IPCC, global warming tends on balance to make winters warmer and therefore there’s less snow. The IPCC believes that the other negative consequences – increased flooding and hurricanes, for example – of global warming outweigh the benefit of milder winters.</p>
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<p>I mean, by definition half of the legal teams are on one side and half are on the other. (Each team does not necessarily have an equal number of lawyers.) So I don’t see my point as necessarily pushing you away from environmental law.</p>
<p>I practiced environmental law for a while.</p>
<p>My work neither helped or hurt the environment, as I will explain. See, one of the most important environmental law on the books is called “CERCLA” It makes polluters liable for cleanup no matter how small their contribution to the mess. </p>
<p>The normal scenario is something like this: In 1974, Company X produces a small quantity of chemical Y. They need to properly dispose of chemical Y, so they call up a chemical disposal company Z which comes and picks up a couple drums of the chemical, and dumps it in their dump which was all completely legal in 1974. 40 years later, Company Z has gone out of business. Company X has been acquired by Company A which was later acquired by Company B. They haven’t produced chemical Y in 30 years and nobody remembers anything about it.</p>
<p>Meanwhile, the government has found Company Z’s dump and declared it to be a superfund site. The government could pay for the cleanup itself or it could use CERCLA to try to find some deep pockets. Under CERCLA, Company B is liable for the whole costs of cleanup of the entire site even though its simply a succesor to a company which contributed less than 1% to the mess which is to be cleaned up, and did so legally, and did so 40 years ago.</p>
<p>My firm would represent Company B. We would try to find some way to weasel out of liability, but more importantly we would try to settle the case. See, even though CERCLA puts our client on the hook 100%, the authorities know that’s totally unfair and anyway they don’t want the bad publicity from causing big damage to a company over such a small thing. So we work out a settlement, get a release, and that’s that.</p>
<p>Anyway, the whole exercise doesn’t really help or hurt the environment, on either side. It’s just a matter of figuring out who will contribute to pay for cleanup. Really it’s basically an informal taxation system.</p>
<p>I practiced environmental law, too, and I have a different perspective.</p>
<p>In part, it depends on who you work for. There are certainly environmental lawyers who work for public interest groups, and for the government, who help the environment by forcing polluters to obey the law.</p>
<p>On the other hand, many environmental lawyers who work for business spend a lot of time helping their clients figure out how to comply with the law–I would argue that also helps the environment.</p>
<p>Finally, there are corporate lawyers who defend polluters–and while they don’t necessarily help the environment, our legal system contemplates everybody having representation.</p>