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PROVIDING SUPPORT FOR THE NATURE CONSERVANCY
For the past five years, attorneys in Heller Ehrman’s Hong Kong office have been helping The Nature Conservancy in Asia by providing legal assistance with most of their existing operations and projects in the region, particularly in China and Indonesia, and we are regularly consulted on their new initiatives in other countries in Asia. In the past year, on the operations side, we have helped The Nature Conservancy review their charity status in Hong Kong, consulted on employment and other day-to-day issues for their representative office in China and researched legal developments on raising funds in China. On specific project initiatives, Heller Ehrman has structured micro-lending arrangements in China, provided advice on setting up a China Rural Energy Enterprises Development Fund project to stimulate investments into environmentally focused alternative energy companies in Western China and researched the feasibility of a carbon trading fund for China.
PROTECTING THE BAY-DELTA ESTUARY
Working with several environmental organizations, attorneys from Heller Ehrman tried a case against the U.S. Department of Interior (DOI), challenging the DOI's failure to honor its statutory obligation to dedicate 800,000 acre feet of water each year from the Central Valley Project to protect fish and wildlife resources of the Bay-Delta estuary. Heller Ehrman's clients received a favorable ruling on the important issues of statutory interpretation that were involved.
ENDANGERED SPECIES LITIGATION
In Earth Island, et al. v. Franklin, et al., Heller Ehrman represented the Earth Island Institute and the Marine Mammal Fund in an action to enforce the Marine Mammal Protection Act (MMPA), a federal law designed to protect dolphins killed and injured in the course of tuna fishing. In response to public pressure created by the lawsuit and our clients' tuna boycott, all major U.S. tuna canneries stopped purchasing "dolphin-unsafe" tuna. The final judgment in the case established permanent protections for this threatened species. Heller filed a similar lawsuit seeking to compel the U.S. State Department to comply with its statutory obligation to protect threatened and endangered sea turtles from destructive shrimp fishing practices.
PROTECTION OF DRINKING WATER SUPPLY
Heller Ehrman and the Natural Resources Defense Council jointly represent a former Chairman of the Hopi Tribe in his effort to protect the "Navajo Aquifer," the only source of drinking water for the Hopi and Navajo tribes in Northern Arizona.
ADVISING SCHOOL DISTRICT ON ENVIRONMENTAL ISSUES
Heller attorneys in Los Angeles advised the Los Angeles Unified School District, which purchased toxic land to build what was intended to be an innovative academy for teenagers, as to whether it would be feasible to continue with the building process.
CHALLENGING “SLAPP SUITS”
Working on behalf of the Oregon Natural Resources Council (ONRC), Heller Ehrman attorneys in Seattle obtained a Rule 12(b)(6) dismissal of a timber company's counterclaims alleging that ONRC's lawsuit against the Forest Service to require further environmental review on timber sales was an abuse of judicial process and tortious interference. The counterclaims were dismissed on Noerr-Pennington grounds, and the dismissal was affirmed. The case established precedent to discourage improper claims designed to target or punish citizens who exercise their rights of free speech and petition ("SLAPP suits").
LITIGATING HIGHWAY CONSTRUCTION
In our Los Angeles office, Heller Ehrman attorneys sued the Federal Highway Administration and Fish and Wildlife Services for violations of federal environmental laws in approving a controversial toll road in Orange County.
