Ms. Lee has managed her own private practice for over three years which has specialized in complex litigation, mediation and client counseling on numerous environmental and commercial matters. The firm has represented clients in a variety of environmental and commercial cases at both the trial and appellate levels and has advised private entities on numerous environmental compliance issues and negotiated on their behalf with the EPA and state regulatory agencies. The firm has also provided mediation services to successfully resolve numerous disputes involving environmental issues between private and governmental entities. Her firm has also represented clients involved in investigations by federal enforcement agencies.
For six and half years, Ms. Lee was a Trial Attorney at the Environment Enforcement Section of the U.S. Department of Justice where she represented the EPA. During her tenure at the Department of Justice, Ms. Lee led multi-million dollar cases involving hazardous wastes and toxic substances under the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation and Liability Act (CERCLA), the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA), water and air pollution, and natural resource damages. She obtained over $100 million in judgements and settlements pursuant to consent decrees. In addition to negotiating consent decrees with private parties, she also negotiated/facilitated the development of highly complex interagency agreements among co-plaintiffs including the EPA, other federal and state agencies, and municipalities.
Ms. Lee is a trained mediator with experience mediating multi-million dollar disputes in federal district court as well as conflicts focusing on contentious issues such as flood risk management, dredged material disposal and impacts to endangered species. These conflicts involved as many as forty participants representing a wide range of stakeholders, EPA and numerous other federal and state agencies. She has mediated partnering sessions between regulators and regulatees on environmental matters to address long-range plans for the resolution of environmental and land-use issues. She has facilitated agreements among multiple agencies with respect to complex environmental problems in the Pacific Northwest. Ms. Lee has also worked with diverse agencies to build consensus regarding environmental impacts in the Columbia River.
"City of Aberdeen's Brownfields Economic Improvement Pilot," EPA Region 10 Brownfields Conference, November 2000.
"The Pacific Northwest's Experiment in a New Kind of Rulemaking - Endangered Species Act Implementation by Local Governments," Valerie Ann Lee and Jaelith Hall-Rivera, Environmental Law Institute. (July 13, 2000)
"ESA presents big challenge for local government," Valerie Ann Lee and Jaelith Hall-Rivera, Daily Journal of Commerce (June 2000)
"WTO and the Environment," Valerie Ann Lee and Rita Schenck, Seattle Times editorial (December 1999)
"Green in the Global Market Place," Presentation to the World Trade Organization. (December 2, 1999)
"Brownfields: Where The Market Makes Green," Madeline June Kass, Pamela J. Bridgen and Valerie Ann Lee, Natural Resources and Environment. (Summer 1998)