Sidley Austin LLP is pleased to announce that James R. Bieke has joined the firm as a partner in the environmental practice in Washington, D.C. Mr. Bieke, a well-known veteran environmental lawyer, will focus on environmental and natural resources law and policy, with a particular emphasis on complex scientific, technical, economic and legal issues.
“Jim is a highly regarded environmental lawyer with decades of experience in cases requiring significant knowledge in legal, regulatory, engineering and scientific disciplines,” said Carter G. Phillips, managing partner of the firm’s Washington, D.C. office and a member of the firm’s Management Committee. “Our environmental partners have worked closely with Jim over the past 15 years, and his personality, work ethic and integrity will complement the practice and our firm.”
Mr. Bieke has handled high profile cases in federal and state courts and before federal and state administrative agencies, including the Hudson and Housatonic River Superfund Sites. He provides advice to clients on numerous legal, technical, scientific and policy issues under the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation and Liability Act (CERCLA), the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA), the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA), the Clean Air Act, the Clean Water Act and other federal and state environmental statutes and regulations. Mr. Bieke has extensive experience in CERCLA investigations and cleanups (including the negotiation of complex consent decrees), natural resource damages, human health and ecological risk assessments, RCRA corrective action, Clean Air Act standard setting, risk issues relating to PCBs and other scientific and technical issues.
“We are so pleased to welcome a lawyer with Jim’s level of experience and skill to our firm,” said David Buente, a global coordinator of Sidley’s environmental practice. “He has handled a steady stream of high profile environmental work over the years and will be a valuable addition to our practice and our clients.”
“I am delighted to be joining one of the premier environmental practices in the country,” said Mr. Bieke. “I look forward to working with David Buente, Sam Gutter and so many other partners at Sidley that I have known through many years of handling cases together.”
Mr. Bieke earned his LL.M from New York University Law School and his J.D. from the University of Michigan Law School (Order of the Coif) where he was the Editor-in-Chief of the Michigan Law Review. Mr. Bieke clerked for both U.S. Supreme Court Justices John M. Harlan and Potter Stewart following a clerkship with Judge J. Edward Lumbard, Chief Judge of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit. He is a member of the District of Columbia Bar as well as the bars of the U.S. Supreme Court and other federal courts around the country. He has been regularly listed in a number of legal directories, including Chambers USA: America’s Leading Lawyers for Business.
Sidley Austin LLP is one of the world’s premier full-service law firms, with approximately 1700 lawyers practicing in 17 U.S. and international cities, including Beijing, Brussels, Frankfurt, Geneva, Hong Kong, London, Shanghai, Singapore, Sydney and Tokyo. Repeating its performance in the inaugural 2010 survey, Sidley received the most first-tier national rankings of any U.S. law firm in the 2011/12 U.S.News – Best Lawyers “Best Law Firms” survey. Sidley was also named the U.S.News – Best Lawyers “Law Firm of the Year” in both Corporate Law and Securities Regulation in the 2011/12 survey (the first year of such designations). BTI, a Boston-based research and consulting firm, has named Sidley as one of only three firms to have been in the top ten of the BTI Client Service rankings every year since the inception of those rankings in 2001, and as number one in three of those years.
