WASHINGTON, D.C. — Venable LLP has announced that environmental lawyer Michael C. Davis has joined the firm as a partner in its Environmental Group.

With a broad practice that spans regulatory counsel, litigation, real estate transactions and insurance coverage, Davis will work out of the firm's New York and Washington, D.C., offices.  He was formerly a partner in the Washington, D.C., office of Carter Ledyard & Milburn LLP.

Davis, 39, regularly represents government and business entities across the country on environmental matters in redevelopment and construction efforts, contract negotiations and brownfield projects.  He also counsels clients on federal and state environmental regulation, including review under the National Environmental Policy Act.

Davis serves as counsel to government and private entities in their ongoing redevelopment efforts at large urban redevelopment projects, including at the former World Trade Center site in New York City.

An expert on liability risk transfer, Davis represents businesses in obtaining environmental insurance coverage in connection with toxic torts, hazardous materials transfer and demolition/deconstruction.  He also counsels developers and other businesses named as PRPs, or potentially responsible parties, facing environmental liability under Superfund legislation.  He frequently negotiates indemnification contracts covering environmental liabilities at various cleanup sites.  Davis has represented entities in connection with more than 400 million issued or transferred liabilities.

Davis has led a number of other noteworthy environmental matters.  He served as lead counsel for a Fortune 500 company in litigation concerning alleged CERCLA violations and in hazardous materials transportation incidents investigated by the U.S. National Transportation Safety Board.  He represents the District of Columbia in the Poplar Point project, a redevelopment along the Anacostia River.  He also filed an amicus brief before the U.S. Supreme Court on behalf of four former administrators of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency in the case Massachusetts v. Environmental Protection Agency, 127 S.Ct. 1438 (2007).

Davis has frequently authored articles on environmental and brownfield laws and has lectured on environmental regulatory topics at the American Law Institute-American Bar Association.  In April, he spoke at the Urban Land Institute Conference entitled "Developing and Investing Green: Creating Value Through Sustainability."

Before Carter Ledyard, Davis was a partner with the law firm of Wilcox & Savage P.C. in Norfolk, Va.  He received his J.D. in 1993 from the University of Chicago Law School, where he was a member of the University of Chicago Law Review, and his B.A., with Distinction, in 1990 from Cornell University.

One of the American Lawyer’s top 100 law firms, Venable has attorneys practicing in all areas of corporate and business law, complex litigation, intellectual property and government affairs. Venable serves corporate, institutional, governmental, nonprofit and individual clients throughout the United States and around the world from its headquarters in Washington, D.C., and offices in California, Maryland, New York and Virginia.