BARG - Key Persons
Dave Metres is a partner with Barg Coffin Lewis & Trapp, LLP. He practices in all major areas of environmental litigation and compliance counseling, focusing on Superfund investigation and remediation, air quality, surface and groundwater quality, environmental issues in real estate transactions, Proposition 65, and endangered species and natural resources policy and permitting.
Job Titles:
- Associate
- Associate With Barg Coffin Lewis
Emily Haldeman is an associate with Barg Coffin Lewis & Trapp, LLP. Her practice focuses on environmental litigation, with particular emphasis on defending toxic tort claims arising from alleged environmental contamination from asbestos.
Morgan Gilhuly specializes in environmental compliance counseling and environmental litigation. For more than 32 years, he has represented defendants in complex environmental regulatory and litigation matters regarding industrial and commercial facilities, oil refineries, mining sites, and agricultural chemicals. He also regularly counsels clients regarding Clean Air Act permitting and enforcement, and California's cap-and-trade and low-carbon fuel standard regulations. Morgan has provided long-term counseling to clients regarding four Superfund sites in Silicon Valley, and he has extensive experience with brownfields redevelopment. Morgan has tried cases involving alleged PCE, hexavalent chromium, and petroleum contamination. He is currently the managing partner of Barg Coffin Lewis & Trapp, LLP.
Environmental law is among the most fascinating topics facing mankind. It is about how we balance our need to use resources today with the long-term health of our species and our planet. For me, it also marries several interests - scientific interests in geology and chemistry, which I studied in college, and law and economics, which is at the heart of much of environmental law. Today, my practice encompasses a broad range of legal, scientific and technical issues, including contamination of air, soil and water, greenhouse gas emissions and brownfields.
Job Titles:
- of Counsel
- Counsel to
- Instructor for the Environmental Law Institute
Richard C. Coffin is of counsel to Barg Coffin Lewis & Trapp, LLP, specializing in the defense of environmental enforcement and toxic tort lawsuits, practice under the federal Superfund law, the defense of Proposition 65 claims, and the prosecution of insurance coverage claims on behalf of policyholders. Since graduating from Stanford Law School in 1976, he has been involved in litigating many cutting-edge issues of environmental law and insurance coverage law. He is also a frequent lecturer on environmental and insurance coverage issues. He was Managing Partner of Barg Coffin Lewis & Trapp, LLP from 2006 to 2009. From 1988 to 1991, he served as the Managing Partner of Landels, Ripley & Diamond, LLP, where he began his legal career in 1976.
When I graduated from law school in 1976, many of the major federal environmental laws were not yet enacted or in their infancy. By being involved in the litigation that defined the scope of the federal environmental laws, a number of Barg Coffin lawyers have a depth and breadth of knowledge of environmental law that is unprecedented.
Rick Coffin Participated in Roundtable on Environmental Law (California Lawyer) By Richard C. Coffin
Rick has been a frequent instructor for the Environmental Law Institute and involved in a number of private philanthropic organizations.
Thomas D. Trapp was a founding partner of Barg Coffin Lewis & Trapp, LLP who passed away in 2007. His insights, intelligence, and equanimity were a foundation of our firm, and he is greatly missed.
In Tom's memory, the firm has established the Thomas Trapp Environmental Scholarship at Hastings College of the Law, his alma mater, to honor Tom's legacy in the environmental law community and perpetuate his memory with students entering this field of study. Contributions to the scholarship fund can be sent to: Thomas Trapp Environmental Scholarship Fund, Hastings Alumni Center, 200 McAllister Street, San Francisco, CA 94102, Attention: Gertrude Arnold, Ph.D.
Barg Coffin was founded in 2000 by a group of partners who had worked together for many years in the Environmental Law Department of Landels, Ripley & Diamond, a large firm with a long, prestigious history in the San Francisco Bay Area. At Landels, they worked on some of the largest and most influential environmental law disputes of the late 20th century, from the earliest Central Valley pesticide cases in the 1970s, to the first Silicon Valley chlorinated solvent cases in the 1980s, to mass toxic tort/product liability cases and military base cleanup cases in the 1990s.
When Landels disbanded in 2000, the Barg Coffin partners established a boutique law firm specializing exclusively in environmental law. Retaining their big-firm expertise and best practices, but in a smaller, more nimble and responsive structure, the new firm of Barg Coffin Lewis & Trapp, LLP, quickly expanded its core client base to include a wide range of businesses, from Fortune 100 corporations to local companies.
In 2007, founding partner Tom Trapp passed away unexpectedly at the age of 55. His sharp wit, kindness, brilliance, and legal expertise are still missed by all who were fortunate to have worked with him.
Today Barg Coffin has an unsurpassed and award-winning reputation for excellence and expertise in environmental law.