Environmental, Health and Safety

King & Spalding’s Environmental, Health, and Safety (EHS) practice consists of more than 30 lawyers worldwide, recognized for their success in handling the most complicated matters arising under environmental, health, and safety laws.

Our lawyers work to understand our clients’ businesses and to navigate regulatory obstacles to achieving their business goals. Top companies turn to King & Spalding’s EHS practice because we know, first-hand, how agencies operate, we understand the multitude of regulations governing different industries, and we provide strategic counsel oriented to achieve practical solutions.  Our group includes environmental, health, and safety lawyers with technical backgrounds—engineering, chemistry, biology, land use, environmental policy and safety—who function at the highest level of the intersections of law and science.

We have significant experience partnering with clients through strategic and cost-effective counseling, negotiations, and litigation. We help clients with permitting of new projects, compliance assurance, auditing and environmental management systems for operating facilities, state and federal enforcement matters, remediation and site closure, rulemakings, transactional support, and Superfund matters.

We work to resolve issues with regulatory agencies and other interested parties through negotiation, but we stand ready to litigate when that is required, and we have decades of experience handling EHS disputes before state and federal administrative agencies and courts, from permit appeals, rules challenges, cost recovery claims and contribution actions, to citizen suits. When our clients face an enforcement action, we have an extensive bench of former US EPA and state enforcement attorneys and former federal prosecutors who are experienced on both sides of civil and criminal enforcement actions. We have defended our clients’ interests in disputes involving a wide variety of issues including the Clean Air Act, Clean Water Act, FERC, pipeline regulations, waters and wetlands issues, OSHA, and federal and state safety regulations.