Biography: Environment

Robert M Olian heads Sidley's environmental practice group in Chicago and co-heads the firm's national environmental practice. Mr Olian works primarily on contested matters involving compliance and civil or criminal enforcement proceedings. Mr Olian also has experience in managing complex legal projects, such as environmental impact statement proceedings and the siting of new waste disposal facilities.

Mr Olian's representations include defending a refinery in a federal class action and state court jury trial alleging property value diminution resulting from underground contaminant migration, defending a refinery in negotiations with state and local governments to establish parameters for brownfields redevelopment of refinery property, and defending a waste disposal company in a class action jury trial alleging health impacts (including cancer), fear of cancer and property value diminution (settlement prior to verdict being rendered). Mr Olian has represented an electric utility in resisting imposition of successor liability for the cleanup of a manufactured gas plant. The bench trial resulted in verdict of no liability. He has defended a major waste disposal company in a criminal investigation of the company's recycled drum transportation procedures. The case was dropped by the US Attorney's Office without an indictment being handed up. Mr Olian has also represented a hazardous waste disposal company in a 45-day administrative trial appealing a permit denial for the company's PCB incinerator and has counselled a consortium of civic leaders regarding the environmental impact statement prepared for a proposed Chicago World's Fair.

Mr Olian joined Sidley upon graduating from Harvard Law School and the Harvard Kennedy School in 1977. He is a member of the Trial Bar in the Northern District of Illinois. Mr Olian is listed in Chambers USA America's Leading Lawyers for Business, Who's Who and Who's Who in American Law. He is a member of various environmental committees or sections of the Chicago and American Bar Associations, and has written and lectured on a variety of topics related to environmental litigation.