10/10/2011
As the expansion of the natural gas industry continue in Western Pennsylvania, the region is rapidly becoming one of the preferred destinations of environmental and energy lawyers.
Two firms based in Texas, with rather new offices within the vicinity of Pittsburgh recently welcomed aboard attorney who moved hundreds, or some even thousands, of miles to be on the forefront of the natural gas boom in Pennsylvania.
On August 8, the Houston-based firm Fulbright & Jaworski brought on board Janet McQuaid as an environmental law partner in the office it lately opened in Washington County in Pennsylvania.
A few weeks after this, Houston-based Burleson also announced that Ivan DeVoren, the chair of the environmental group Kleinbard Bell & Brecker based in Philadelphia, has joined the office Burleson has opened in Washington County during the year 2010 to lead the environmental practice of the firm.
Kevin Colosimo, the head of the Washington County office of Burleson, said that for around eight months, the law firm had been searching for someone who could lead its environmental practice in Western Pennslvania, but was having a hard time finding a lawyer with a “more rounded” practice.
He said, “What we found is a lot of folks at existing firms were service partners whose practices were specific in one particular facet of environmental practice but not the others. They may have been a water person but not an air person or a Superfund person.”
According to Colosimo, the expertise of DeVoren was “complete from the standpoint of ‘all media,” an environmental term referring to soil, dust, air, water and diet.
