It wasn’t long ago that an environmental lawyer was considered one of the bad guys - we were always the ones saying “no” during a transaction concerning properties with environmental problems, slowing things down. Now I think we play a positive role. New limits on liabilities are actually creating opportunities for investors to make good use of Brownfields properties throughout the state. And we’re assisting our clients in utilizing a menu of meaningful incentives - such as tax credits, remedial cost reimbursement through state agencies, financial support for innovative technologies and other insurance coverage and financial assistance programs that make new development of old industrial properties possible. For me, it’s an amazing and refreshing change. We’re now able to help make deals happen, rather than stymieing them.

Our clients range from Fortune 10 Corporations to Mom-and-Pop enterprises. Our services run the full gamut of compliance matters but has focused primarily on development and redevelopment work including permitting developments, marshalling support from the NJDEP, the New Jersey Economic Development Authority, and the New Jersey Office of Economic Growth, and negotiating the environmental provisions of property transfers. A lot of what I do involves communication: I work with technicians and enforcement officials on a day-to-day basis, and it’s often my job to translate technical texts and reports into understandable English. (Bromberg was an English major in college.)

We have expanded our practice to counsel clients in the rapidly accelerating “green” movement, providing services to clients in green areas such as renewal energy deals, lease provisions, financing for such transactions, and newly emerging greenhouse gas emissions control and reporting obligations.

When I began my career in the 1980s, it was evident that environmental law was becoming a distinct practice area. And New Jersey truly has been at the center of its development - other states look to us for statutory and regulatory guidance.

The state has made huge strides in improving the environment in the last two decades. While political influences are real - enforcement emphasis will change from administration to administration - there has been an effort to make enforcement uniform. Given the lack of funding for the NJDEP, however, we expect to see, and indeed have already begun to see, a significant increase in enforcement actions.

At the heart of every case I handle - be it compliance or transactional - there is always a client whose business is not environmental. I care about these clients as if they were my own family, as if theirs were my own business - I worry about them, look out for them, all of them: “mom and pop” operations, large real estate owners and developers, corporate managers and individual entrepreneurs. No matter where I am, I’m always in close touch with them. In the end, it’s my job to navigate the environmental shoals for them as efficiently as possible and ultimately to get them back to the business of their business.