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Raines Feldman Littrell’s Environmental, Land Use, and Natural Resources practice has extensive experience handling litigation and regulatory compliance in a broad spectrum of specialties including all aspects of land, air, surface and ground water.  Our team guides our clients through multifaceted challenges to cost-effective solutions by addressing and resolving difficult legal problems that are intertwined with complex scientific issues.  We have substantial experience representing clients in administrative actions, regulatory compliance, and litigation in virtually every sector of federal and state environmental, land use, and natural resource law.

The environmental, land use and natural resources practice group at Raines Feldman can assist with both your most complex legal challenges and the day-to-day issues for where there is no “cookbook” or standard practice to follow, that must be addressed to maintain compliance and keep abreast of recent policy and regulatory changes.

Environmental

Raines Feldman Littrell’s environmental practice group has decades of experience with complex, rapidly-changing federal and state environmental regulations and the ever-increasing and changing proliferation of laws, policy, cases, and issues – especially in California.

We take a holistic approach in identifying, evaluating, and resolving our client’s environmental issues, including air, water, hazardous materials, and soil-related work. With so much at stake, providing early guidance that combines practical business understanding, dispute resolution expertise, and comprehensive insight on the legislation and regulations that affect all aspects of compliance with environmental policy is part of our strategy for keeping our clients up-to-date with evolving guidelines.

Land Use

Combining law with strategic insight and strong government relations, we focus on obtaining entitlements, permits or approvals and guiding your projects to successful completion. Raines Feldman lawyers are equally skilled at challenging adverse administrative actions and will vigorously defend approved projects if they hit political or regulatory snags.

We work closely with local government officials to make certain the land for real estate and development projects has the appropriate zoning and required permits and approvals. Our lawyers analyze local land development codes, zoning ordinances, development regulations and other restrictions and requirements to ensure that they do not conflict with a client’s proposed project.

Such efforts form a solid foundation for obtaining the necessary government permits and zoning approvals. They also enable our team to effectively negotiate development agreements, easements, licenses and other agreements that may be required for project completion.

Natural Resources

In nearly all natural resource development projects there is the potential to impact threatened or endangered species and many issues are multi-faceted and involve numerous government, quasi-government and public agencies, non-governmental organizations (NGOs), state and federal agencies, and other stakeholders with whom Raines Feldman Littrell attorneys have built decades of credibility and relationships.

Organizations operating in the natural resources sector are subject to broad regulations at the local, state, national and international levels and must comply with environmental policies designed to protect the environment and manage natural resources. Whatever natural resource issue arises – whether large or small, on every phase – from idea, to planning, to implementation, to successful conclusion – Raines Feldman Littrell’s attorneys can guide these matters through to a satisfactory resolution.

Our attorneys have the experience to integrate environmental regulatory concerns into near-term and long-term decision making and project development. When necessary and unavoidable, we have also pursued natural resource management issues in legal proceedings.