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1350 I Street, N.W.
Suite 700
Washington, DC 20005-3311
Washington

• Biotechnology
• Climate Change
• International Environmental Law
• Multilateral Environmental Agreements
• Ocean and Coastal Resources
• Trade and Environment
• Environmental

• Cornell University (A.B., 1989)(Phi Beta Kappa)
• Harvard Law School (J.D., magna cum laude, 1993)
• Harvard Law Review (1991-1993)

• Pennsylvania (active, non-resident) (1994)
• District of Columbia (2006)
• American Bar Association
• U.S. District Court, District of Columbia
• ABA Standing Committee on Environmental Law
• American Society of International Law

Mr. LaMotte advises and represents clients in matters relating to international environmental and oceans-related regulatory regimes. He also serves as co-chair of the firm's Climate Change practice group, where he advises clients on both the emerging U.S. climate change regimes and the evolving international climate change framework. 

Mr. LaMotte was recently appointed by the President of the American Bar Association to the ABA Standing Committee on Environmental Law. The 11-member group examines and analyzes emerging environmental law and policy issues; assists in the development of ABA policies in the field; and communicates about the myriad environmental law activities taking place throughout the Association.

He brings over ten years of experience as an international lawyer at the U.S. Department of State, where he served most recently as Deputy Assistant Legal Adviser. As an attorney in the Legal Adviser’s Office of International Environmental, Oceans and Scientific Affairs, Mr. LaMotte represented the U.S. Government in designing, negotiating or implementing most of the major environmental and oceans agreements and initiatives. 

On chemicals-related issues, he has worked on issues relating to the Stockholm Convention on Persistent Organic Pollutants and its regional counterpart, the Montreal Protocol on Substances that Deplete the Ozone Layer and the U.S. excise tax on substances manufactured with ozone-depleting substances, the UNEP global mercury program, and the Rotterdam Convention on the Prior Informed Consent Procedure for Hazardous Chemicals and Pesticides in International Trade. 

On oceans law and marine pollution issues, Mr. LaMotte has extensive prior experience with deep seabed mining issues at the International Seabed Authority under the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea; negotiation of new marine pollution agreements at the International Maritime Organization; and negotiation of the UNESCO Convention on Protection of Underwater Cultural Heritage. Representative oceans law matters include counseling a company pursuing ocean iron fertilization as a tool for long-term carbon sequestration, and counseling a company engaged in archaeologically sensitive exploration and recovery of deep-water shipwrecks.

In addition, he served as a U.S. negotiator at several of the Kyoto Protocol implementation meetings, including those developing rules for the Protocol's market mechanisms (i.e., the Clean Development Mechanism and emissions trading). Among other climate change-related client matters, he currently serves as counsel to the Carbon Offset Providers Coalition.

At the State Department, Mr. LaMotte also served in the Office of United Nations Affairs, where he handled issues relating to Iraq, the United Nations, and other international organizations, and where he helped craft the U.S. submission to the International Court of Justice proceeding relating to the security barrier in the West Bank. He also handled matters relating to the Framework Convention on Tobacco Control. He also served in the Office of International Claims and Investment Disputes, where he appeared on behalf of the United States in a major arbitration proceeding at the Iran-U.S. Claims Tribunal involving the interpretation of the Algiers Accords. 

Mr. LaMotte has received numerous U.S. Department of State Superior Honor Awards as well as the EPA gold and silver medals for his work as a negotiator of multilateral environmental agreements. He was a 2001 recipient of the Federal Bar Association’s Younger Lawyer Award. 

Prior to joining the State Department, he served as a judicial clerk to the Honorable Judith Rogers on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit, and as a Ford Fellow in Public International Law at the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development in London. He is a 1993 magna cum laude graduate of Harvard Law School, where he was the Book Review and Commentary Editor at the Harvard Law Review. 

Mr. LaMotte is a member of the Pennsylvania Bar (active, non-resident) and District of Columbia Bar.