Attorneys

MFA has a large team of specialists with experience in a wide range of technical areas, providing expert opinions in reports and depositions and at trial. 

MFA has provided cost allocations for remediation not only at large, complex CERCLA sites with over 100 parties but also for small projects. MFA has also supported the identification and nomination of additional liable or responsible parties. MFA staff have successfully supported equitable allocation efforts at complex sediment sites and industrial and municipal waste landfills.

MFA can provide technical expertise at the beginning of the legal process to advise on the strengths and limitations of facts and technical arguments supporting a claim, and we can advise on additional data needs to support strategic arguments. In addition, it is not unusual for MFA to be brought into projects near the end of a case to review opposing party opinions and develop rebuttal arguments. Our wide breadth of technical services gives our team a unique advantage in offering strategic technical support to legal teams.

MFA has a long history of providing all levels of environmental due diligence, from Phase I and II environmental site assessments to exhaustive analyses of potential environmental obligations, associated costs, and probabilities and uncertainties. MFA’s engineers and planners also collaborate on site development due diligence; this includes establishing site configuration options, planning, permitting, and developing design and construction costs and time frames.

MFA provides technical support to clients’ legal counsel in establishing insurance coverage claims. This can include historical forensics; contaminant release timing, fate and transport analyses; and engineer’s cost estimates.

Legal teams serving a broad range of industrial and service-sector clients regularly retain MFA to establish the fact base for compliance-related issues. We also support regulatory agency negotiations, audits, and voluntary disclosures as well as permitting and analyses of policy and guidance.

MFA assists clients and their legal counsel by developing practical solutions that reduce risk and comply with regulatory requirements, both in response to incidents and in developing proactive measures. MFA provides industrial hygiene planning, exposure monitoring and modeling, and toxicological review consistent with OSHA and EPA requirements for facilities with highly hazardous chemicals.

Chemical forensic evaluations can be critical tools for sites where multiple parties are involved. Forensic investigations and analysis support characterization of contaminant nature and extent linked to specific sources or periods and evaluations of fate and transport. This includes evaluation of many chemicals of concern, including evaluation of petroleum sources and legacy contaminants such as DDT and PCBs. MFA’s evaluations and modeling provide clients with fact-based evidence to support litigation cases, allocation claims, and projects led by regulatory agencies.