Biography • Environment

Robert M Olian is the head of the Chicago office's environmental practice group and the co-head of 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 is a member of various environmental committees or sections of the Chicago and American bar associations, and is admitted to the Trial Bar in the Northern District of Illinois. He has written and lectured on a variety of topics related to environmental litigation.

Mr Olian's representations include: a refinery in federal class action and state court jury trial alleging property value diminution resulting from underground contaminant migration; a refinery in negotiations with state and local governments to establish parameters for brownfields redevelopment of refinery property; a waste disposal company in class action jury trial alleging health impacts (including cancer), fear of cancer, and property value diminution; an electric utility in connection with an attempt to impose successor liability for the cleanup of a manufactured gas plant; a major waste disposal company in connection with a criminal investigation of the company's recycled drum transportation procedures; a hazardous waste disposal company in a 45-day administrative trial appealing the denial of a permit for the company's PCB incinerator; and a refinery in a federal enforcement action alleging violations of the Benzene Waste NESHAP.

Mr Olian joined Sidley upon graduating from Harvard Law School and the Harvard Kennedy School in 1977. He is admitted in Illinois.