Biography

John transforms intricate environmental challenges into clear legal solutions.

John represents industrial and commercial clients facing complex environmental exposure and remediation cases, successfully defending clients in class and mass actions, citizen suits, private cost recovery actions, and contract disputes. Applying a detailed understanding of his clients’ operations, John develops strong, fact-based defenses grounded in reliable science to focus the legal issues in complex litigation. While John’s practice centers on cases involving technical, scientific, and engineering issues, the key is to make these issues clear and relatable.

John also counsels permittees and project developers navigating environmental permits and transactions. The same strengths that John uses in litigation also steer his clients through multi-layered permitting processes. Ensuring that regulatory agencies understand how a client’s operation fits within the legal framework, John works with clients and consultants to secure logical and sustainable permit requirements. In agency enforcement actions, he helps defeat unsupported claims while charting practical paths toward compliance when necessary.

In any context, John bases defenses, negotiations, and permitting strategies on a close understanding of his client’s goals and operations, the purposes of the legal framework, and the forces driving agencies, litigation opponents, or other parties in a transaction.

John leads B&D’s Waste Management & Recycling Practice Group. Before entering law school, he served in the U.S. Peace Corps in the Republic of Moldova.

Education

  • Boston University  (B.A., 1990)
    • English
  • Pace University  (J.D., magna cum laude, 2003)

Bar Admissions

  • New York
  • District of Columbia

Court Admissions

  • U.S. Court of Appeals - Second Circuit
  • U.S. Court of Appeals - Third Circuit
  • U.S. Court of Appeals – Fifth Circuit
  • U.S. District Court – Southern District of New York
  • U.S. District Court – Eastern District of New York

Professional Affiliations

  • American Bar Association, Section of Environment, Energy and Resources
  • New York State Bar Association, Environmental Law Section

Honors & Awards

  • Chambers and Partners – USA, Band 3 in Environmental Law (2021-2025)
  • The Best Lawyers in America©, a Best Lawyers® publication, recognition in Environmental Law (2023-2025)
  • The Legal 500, recognized in Environmental Litigation (2022-2024)
  • The Legal 500, recognized in Environmental Regulatory Law (2021)
  • American Lawyer, Litigator of the Week, Shout-Out, April 8, 2025
  • Super Lawyers, part of Thomson Reuters, New York Super Lawyer (2016-2024)
  • Super Lawyers, part of Thomson Reuters, New York Rising Star (2013-2014)

Languages

  • Romanian (proficiency)