Seattle (Millennium Tower)

Effective February 1, 2012, we are pleased to welcome our colleagues from the Seattle law firm of GordonDerr LLP, a preeminent real estate, land use, water law, and civil litigation firm in the Pacific Northwest.*  

As a combined firm, we look forward to helping a broad, national range of clients successfully navigate the complexities of developing, maintaining, and operating natural resource, energy, infrastructure, and sustainable real estate projects.  For more information about our expanded practice capabilities, we invite you to also visit the practice page on the GordonDerr legacy site.  General news and additional information about the combination is available at  www.vnf.com/gordonderr.

*The combined firm will retain the name Van Ness Feldman, A Professional Corporation.  The Seattle office of Van Ness Feldman will use the trade name Van Ness Feldman GordonDerr for a transitional period. 

National Experience, Pacific Northwest Focus

Van Ness Feldman has one of the pre-eminent environmental and energy practices in the United States. The firm has an active practice working with clients with interests in the Pacific Northwest, Canada and Alaska on major energy, environment and natural resource laws involving legislative, administrative and enforcement issues. As part of its body of work, the Seattle office assists clients in:

• Complying with FERC’s Standards of Conduct regulations and regulations prohibiting energy market manipulation through training on compliance programs and procedures and regulatory compliance reviews.
• Coordinating state and federal applications for permits and licenses, including environmental requirements for emerging and existing energy projects.
• Providing strategic guidance on the feasibility of, funding options for, and multi-jurisdictional, multi-disciplinary permitting for, cleanup and redevelopment of contaminated industrial (brownfields) properties.
• Providing strategic business and policy guidance, including investment due diligence, on development of new “clean” technologies and market opportunities related to energy efficiency, global climate change and e-waste.

For additional information on the firm’s work in a specific practice area, see the Practice Areas at left.

Advising Regional Leaders

Our diverse Pacific Northwest clients include:

• Electricity generators, such as public power agencies, independent power producers, rural electric cooperatives and investor-owned utilities
• Ports and local governments
• Companies in energy-intensive industries, such as food producers
• Commercial fishing operations
• Real estate developers
• Financial and investor entities
• Waste management companies
• Agricultural associations.

Our Seattle Office Team

The Seattle office helps clients achieve their goals through use of cost-effective teams that combine the appropriate mix of expertise, insight, and judgment. Through comprehensive counseling in various practice areas, we ensure our clients receive tailored representation to make the strategic business decisions that will contribute to their competitiveness and, ultimately, ensure their success. In addition to attorneys with extensive commercial, regulatory and transactional expertise, attorneys resident in the Seattle office include:

• A former Special Counsel and Chief Counsel to the Energy and Natural Resources Committee of the United States Senate
• A former Chief Minority Counsel for the Committee on Interior and Insular Affairs (now the Committee on Resources) of the U. S. House of Representatives
• A former Assistant Attorney General for the State of Washington
• A former Senior Vice President and General Counsel to a FORTUNE 100 industrial services and environmental management corporation.