Clients call on Ira Gottlieb because of his practical approach and problem solving skills. Ira helps clients efficiently and effectively resolve complex environmental issues involving Superfund, natural resource damages (NRD), environmental cost recovery claims, regulatory issues, and policyholder insurance coverage problems. Chair of the firm’s Environment & Energy Practice Group, Ira is known for being “very responsive and knowledgeable,” and for “his skill at assigning the most appropriate resources” to effectively handle matters. Ira draws from his extensive litigation and trial experience and his time as an Assistant Regional Counsel for the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Region III, to come up with goal-oriented strategies for success.
Ira’s environmental and NRD work involves large, multi-party Superfund sites, including urban watershed sites located around the country. Ira is lead attorney for clients on several Superfund and NRD matters involving the Berry’s Creek Study Area in New Jersey, the Portland Harbor Superfund Site in Oregon, the Lower Passaic River in New Jersey, and other Superfund sites. He has successfully defended and resolved cost recovery and environmental indemnity actions and pursued insurance coverage claims. Ira is also defending parties in several cases around the country against claims involving newly emerging contaminants, such as PFAS.
His policyholder insurance coverage work covers an array of litigation and counseling in multi-state environmental and toxic tort cases and involves claims relating to products liability, business interruption, employers’ liability, workers compensation, and Directors and Officers (D&O) and Errors and Omissions coverage. He was part of a litigation team pursuing insurers in New York state court for recovery of damages to an oil platform in the North Sea.
Ira is a speaker and co-host of environmental seminars and conferences. He has written on numerous environmental-related topics, including authoring articles and book chapters on Superfund, NRD, and insurance for climate change liabilities and business interruption. Ira is the co-author of a recent a ABA book chapter titled “CERCLA Cost Recovery, Contribution and a Primer on Natural Resource Damages Law: Regulation, Litigation and Basic Economic Principles,” which is part of an ABA book series Environmental Litigation: Law and Strategy (Second Edition 2019). Ira has served as a past Co-Chair of the Committee on Superfund and NRD Litigation of the ABA Section of Environment, Energy and Resources.
