Expertise
Año Nuevo State Park, San Mateo County, CA; photo by Adam Griffith
Mission
Sher Edling LLP represents states, cities, public agencies, and businesses in high-impact, high-value environmental cases. We combine decades of top-level litigation and trial experience with an unwavering dedication to holding polluters accountable for the damage they cause.
Our work arises out of our conviction that the courts provide an even playing field essential to taking on the biggest polluters. They should not be allowed to make everyone else pay for the damage caused by their pollution. Our team signed up for this work to make a difference for our clients and the world. Explore our practice areas below.
Climate
Climate change is the issue of our lifetime. It is a global crisis with local impacts everywhere, including rising seas, more frequent heat waves and droughts, more destructive storms, and growing public health threats. Taxpayers, residents, and businesses around the country are increasingly forced to pay the enormous costs necessary to mitigate and survive those impacts, with low-income populations and communities of color typically hit first and worst. The fossil fuel industry has known for more than 50 years that this would happen when its products are used as intended. But instead of warning anyone about the danger, its members chose to deceive consumers about the science of climate change and the role they and their products play in causing it. Our climate practice seeks to hold them accountable for that deception.
Drinking Water
Clean water is vital to everyone. So when water supplies are contaminated with chemicals or other dangerous pollutants, our public health and our economy are jeopardized. The disturbing legacy of water contamination by large corporations, whether through carelessness or callousness, is now being felt around the country, and the substantial cleanup costs too often fall on landowners whose wells are poisoned and on the customers in local water districts that provide water to their communities. We work with water suppliers and others to hold those who contaminate water supplies accountable for the cleanup costs – so that landowners, residents, and businesses victimized by the pollution are not stuck with the bill.
Land, Air & Water
Oil spills. Toxic waste. Pesticides. These and other chemical contaminants can have devastating and long-lasting economic and health consequences on people and businesses, whether in urban, suburban, or rural communities. Holding those responsible for the contamination accountable is essential to protecting those communities and future generations.
Practice
