Kathleen M. (Kate) Whitby

Kate concentrates her practice in Environmental law, real estate, dispute resolution, and complex litigation. She has twenty years of experience focused primarily on problem-solving for environmental regulation, contamination and cleanup projects, and works as a third-party neutral as well as an attorney in private practice.

Kate serves as national counsel for clients with CERCLA, RCRA, CWA, CAA, UST, Brownfields and other environmental regulatory program challenges. She acts as the legal representative on multi-disciplinary client teams faced with environmental problems and litigation projects, and participates in strategy and decision-making dialogues involving business, technical, supervisory and management representatives. Her skills allow her to function as her clients’ representative in multi-party groups engaged in litigation and administrative proceedings, and she attends to the coordination and communication tasks needed to keep clients informed and capable of decisionmaking.

Kate also provides environmental counseling, planning and transactional support for real estate and business operations and deals, including:

• reviewing contracts and other transactional documents to assess and allocate potential liabilities associated with developing, building, opening, operating or closing a business that produces, handles, stores, transports, treats or disposes of hazardous substances, solid wastes, petroleum products, etc.;
  
  
• advising clients on the potential and actual environmental regulatory requirements (water, air and land-use issues arising under state, federal or local laws) which may impact a business, real estate transaction or deal;
  
  
• negotiating alternate terms for deals or transactions which are more protective of, or create fewer risks for, the client; and
  
  
• evaluating and, if necessary, handling, litigation claims (with or without actually filing a lawsuit) resulting from acts or omissions that may have environmental consequences.

In addition to representing clients in environmental litigation and cleanup cases and real estate projects, Kate is approved as a third party neutral (mediator, arbitrator, etc.) for roster panels maintained by the U.S. Institute of Environmental Conflict Resolution, the CPR Institute of Dispute Resolution, the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Missouri, and U.S. Arbitration & Mediation - Midwest. Since 2004 Kate has been an adjunct professor at the Washington University School of Law in St. Louis, where she teaches a class on alternative dispute resolution theory and practice. She serves as a frequent speaker and moderator at national and local bar association meetings and conferences, and is the former Chair of the American Bar Association's Section of Environment, Energy and Resources (SEER) Coordinating Group on ADR.

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