Holland & Hart LLP
Kevin Murray
October 1, 2016
My father was a very skilled man. A mechanic by trade, he was also a skilled carpenter, able to fix anything. As a young man, I hung around my dad a lot, and as I did he tried to share many of these skills with me. I learned my way around auto mechanics, how to weld, basic carpentry, and machinery, but one thing I learned early on was that the right tool (even if you had to make it) made the job easier and more efficient. In fact, without the right tool the job may suffer.
While I dabble whenever possible with a wrench and hammer, I spend my work life practicing environmental law, more specifically the acquisition and development of contaminated land. It has been more than thirty years since the adoption of the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation and Liability Act (CERCLA), which arguably had the most profound impact on the acquisition of real property in, well, the last thirty years. Even so, we still have people approach us unaware of the need to take precautions to protect themselves from environmental liabilities, in oncological fashion, coming in with problems that can only be managed and not eradicated.
