Profile: David T Buente Jr

Environment

Biography: Environment

David T Buente, Jr is the head of Sidley's environmental group and represents clients in complex federal environmental litigation, legislative and rule-making matters, with an emphasis on Clean Air Act, Superfund, environmental criminal and toxic tort matters.

From 1985 to 1990, Mr Buente was the chief of the environmental enforcement section of the Environment and Natural Resources Division within the US Department of Justice. Prior to that, he handled a broad range of federal environmental trial and appellate litigation for EPA and other federal agencies as a Justice Department trial attorney, and also served with the Department of the Interior and the Pennsylvania attorney general's office.

Mr Buente has represented a number of corporations in complex federal environmental enforcement matters with the DoJ and EPA, including American Electric Power, Cinergy, General Electric, Georgia Pacific, Ford Motors, Honeywell and Tysons Food, and advised a number of trade associations on diverse environmental issues.

He is a member of the American Bar Association's sections on environment, energy and resources and on litigation, and has served as vice chair on numerous ABA committees. He is currently vice chair of the environmental litigation committee.

Mr Buente has been cited in a number of surveys of private-sector lawyers, including Chambers USA Leading Lawyers (ranked tier one), Euromoney's World's Leading Lawyers: Environmental Law and Who's Who Legal USA: Environment.