Kathryn (Kaki) Schmidt currently focuses on citizen suit enforcement under the Clean Water Act, Clean Air Act and the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA), and private party cost recovery under the Comprehensive Environmental Recovery, Compensation and Liability Act (CERCLA or Superfund).
As a former Trial Attorney in the Environmental Enforcement Section of the United States Department of Justice (DOJ), Kaki has extensive experience litigating cases under the nation’s major environmental laws, and she is well-connected to many DOJ and Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) current and former lawyers. Hired under the prestigious and highly competitive Attorney General’s Honors Program, Kaki represented EPA for nearly a decade in numerous complex civil actions arising under federal environmental statutes. She has negotiated multi-million-dollar consent decrees and litigated cases when settlements were not achievable. With her extensive experience as lead counsel in major environmental cases, combined with her scientific background, Kaki brings a wealth of experience and energy to her environmental practice.
Kaki also managed her own law practice as an estate planning attorney. For a decade, she counseled families on their estate planning needs, providing guided, focused discussions to understand their objectives and then drafting highly customized documents that executed clients’ specific intentions.
Kaki hails from the beautiful state of Colorado. For more than twenty years she has been actively engaged in advocacy on numerous issues in her community that concern her the most--environmental protection, food/nutrition issues, voter protection and youth sports safety. Kaki is a hockey mom to two sons, and she and her husband have enjoyed watching their boys play at ice rinks all over the East Coast.