Environmental, Natural Resources & Toxic Tort Litigation

"Combining strong national litigation strength with a standalone full-service environmental offering, Baker Botts L.L.P. is able to provide a “soup to nuts” service to energy and manufacturing companies in the defense of toxic exposure and environmental tort cases."

The Legal 500 U.S. 2022

Baker Botts has long-standing experience handling complex and cutting edge environmental, natural resources, and toxic tort litigation.

Our approach to each case is to partner with the client and incorporate the multiple legal, business, technical and policy issues affecting the litigation into a shared strategy. Our industry-specific knowledge is one of Baker Botts’ key strengths. We have represented energy, technology and manufacturing clients for decades and learned their operating environments and challenges. We build on this experience to ensure that litigation strategies align with our clients’ overarching business objectives.

Baker Botts has a long track record in litigation, whether at trial, on the papers or in settlement negotiations. Our team of lawyers includes former federal and state regulators and DOJ trial lawyers who understand the dynamics of enforcement litigation and have been active on these issues for decades. With one of the largest Environmental Practices in the country coupled with a strong Litigation bench, we are able to match subject matter knowledge with each task at hand to avoid “learning curve” costs.

We are committed to managing litigation in the most efficient and cost-effective way for our clients. The breadth of our experience allows lean staffing, and we promote creative and strategic options for handling discovery and document review tasks and ensuring the efficient allocation of resources among the litigation team.

Our environmental, natural resources, and toxic tort litigation experience includes:

• Air, water and waste governmental enforcement actions
• Citizen suits under RCRA, CERCLA, the Clean Water Act and the Clean Air Act
• Climate change litigation
• Toxic tort lawsuits involving chemical exposures, dust exposures and industrial accidents
• Environmentally-related products liability cases
• Superfund disputes
• Natural Resource Damages (NRD) claims
• Endangered Species Act (ESA) cases
• Insurance coverage actions over pollution issues and toxic tort claims
• Bankruptcy matters
• International arbitration