DEMETRIOU - Key Persons
Jennifer Taggart has twenty-five years of experience assisting clients with their environmental, real property, eminent domain and consumer product safety and labeling matters. Her consumer product safety and labeling practice includes all aspects of manufacturing, importing, distributing and selling consumer products, including design standards, labeling and other compliance points, such as Proposition 65 litigation and compliance. As part of this practice, Ms. Taggart has developed procedure manuals and trained staff to identify consumer products requiring labeling. Ms. Taggart is intimately familiar with Proposition 65 and related state law claims. She has represented several clients in various Proposition 65 litigation matters. She also assists clients with Proposition 65 compliance, including appropriate warnings and reformulation.
Her environmental law practice includes litigation, regulatory counseling, regulatory development, and transactional issues. Her specialties include air quality and permitting, and environmental remediation and cost recovery litigation. She has broad experience in all aspects of federal, state and local environmental laws, including air quality, air toxics, solid wastes, hazardous wastes, hazardous materials, underground storage tanks, and water quality and wastewater issues. She litigates and negotiates compliance issues arising under federal, state and local environmental laws and regulations before and with judicial and administrative bodies.
Ms. Taggart's experience in cost recovery litigation includes private cost recovery actions under the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation and Liability Act ("CERCLA"), the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act ("RCRA"), and related state common law claims. She represents potentially responsible parties in both complex settlement negotiations and in alternate dispute resolution proceedings. She is also experienced in obtaining environmental insurance coverage for her clients. She has successfully resolved a number of environmental coverage cases against insurers for clients with contaminated properties.
Ms. Taggart assists clients with real estate transactions, particularly when complicated by environmental matters. She has assisted clients with identifying environmental issues and found solutions to achieve her clients' goals. Ms. Taggart's eminent domain practice includes eminent domain, inverse condemnation, and CEQA and NEPA compliance. Ms. Taggart has successfully represented both public agencies and private property owners in all stages of eminent domain proceedings, and dealt with the entire breadth of legal issues, including "right to take" challenges, claim for product enhancement and blight, severance damages, relocation assistance benefits, prejudgment possession, inverse condemnation, regulatory takings, loss of business goodwill, leaseholds, and easements.
Prior to practicing law, Ms. Taggart was an environmental engineer for Rockwell International Corporation, Rocketdyne Division. She handled air permitting in jurisdiction of the South Coast Air Quality Management District and the Ventura County Air Pollution Control District, and compliance with AB 2588, the Air Toxics "Hot Spots" Information and Assessment Act; hazardous materials, business plans and related emergency planning; SARA; and Proposition 65. She was also involved with remedial activities at several facilities.
Ms. Taggart's engineering and compliance experience makes her uniquely suited to assist her clients. Ms. Taggart understands her clients' business operations and their concerns. She provides regulatory counseling and compliance audits. She assists her clients with identifying and preventing problems, as well as solving them.
Job Titles:
- Partner
- Head of the Firm 's Environmental Department
Mr. Francis is the head of the Firm's Environmental Department. He has over 30 years of experience providing representation and guidance in connection with a wide range of environmental matters including contaminated real property and superfund sites.
Mr. Francis provides guidance in real estate lease negotiations and purchase and sale agreement negotiations re environmental matters.