Companies turn to Lanny Kurzweil to guide them through, and advocate for them in, complicated environmental litigation and intricate regulatory and transactional matters. He represents clients across many industries—including oil, chemical, financial services, manufacturing, real estate and solar development industries—in environmental matters as well as in general commercial and product liability matters. He also served as a statutory receiver for the Superior Court of New Jersey for an insolvent debtor holding a very large environmentally impacted site.
Lanny advises his clients on the claims and challenges involving newly emerging contaminants, such as PFAS. An experienced trial attorney in federal and state courts, Lanny handles cases under CERCLA (Superfund) and the New Jersey Spill Compensation and Control Act affecting single- or multi-party sites, and those involving groundwater, public and private water supplies, large river systems, sediments, and other environmental media. He regularly advises clients on the intricacies of natural resource damages (NRD) and assessments under federal and state law. The NRD cases span multiple jurisdictions. He also advises companies on general commercial matters and products liability, toxic torts, contracts and reinsurance issues. Lanny has successfully mediated and arbitrated several cost recovery actions in New Jersey and New York, resulting in very substantial awards in favor of his clients, and has negotiated the transfer of responsibility for many sites. Lanny also recently won at trial a cost recovery and allocation case under New Jersey’s Sanitary Landfill Closure Act.
A frequent lecturer on environmental topics, Lanny often speaks on New Jersey’s NRD Program, environmental law and trial topics for several bar associations and continuing professional education organizations. He co-moderates the bimonthly round table of the Environmental Business Council (EBC) of the Commerce and Industry Association of New Jersey (CIANJ), which routinely draws about 100 professionals. He is an active member of the EBC steering committee and a member of the CIANJ Executive Committee, and also serves on a volunteer basis as CIANJ’s General Counsel. He has received the Chairman’s Outstanding Volunteer Award from CIANJ as well as CIANJ’s Outstanding Leadership Award and the EBC Service Award. In 2019, CIANJ named him an inaugural member to its Environmental Hall of Fame.
For 20 years, Lanny was closely involved in the administration of New Jersey ethics matters. For 14 years, he was a member of the Supreme Court of New Jersey (SCNJ) Disciplinary Oversight Committee, serving as its Chairman for seven years through February 2008. Lanny is also the past Chairman of the SCNJ District VA Ethics Committee, and past Chairman of the SCNJ Ethics Finance Committee.
Lanny served on the Montclair Planning Board from 2005‒2015, ending his term as Vice Chairman. Ten years of planning-related experience informs his work assisting clients in bringing impacted sites back to productive reuse. He is a board member of the Dartmouth College Hillel and was previously a long-time board member of La Casa de Don Pedro, a Newark-based community service organization.
