Overview
Daphne W. Trotter is an environmental litigator and transactional lawyer.
Daphne frequently counsels clients on the role of environmental issues and the management of associated risks in corporate, real estate and lending transactions. In this role, she serves as lead environmental counsel for purchasers and sellers in mergers and acquisitions involving facilities in a variety of industries, including power generation, building material supply and manufacturing, petroleum and natural gas storage and transfer, hospitals, glass manufacturing and chemical manufacturing. In these transactions, she supervises environmental due diligence, negotiates relevant environmental provisions of purchase agreements, including provisions addressing remediation of environmental compliance and contamination issues, and, where appropriate, assists clients in procuring environmental insurance to address material liabilities arising from existing and future contamination issues. In addition, Daphne counsels clients in the satisfaction of cleanup obligations under transaction-triggered laws, such as New Jersey’s Industrial Site Recovery Act and the Connecticut Transfer Act.
Daphne also represents clients in complex environmental litigation involving state and federal regulators, as well as toxic tort/product liability actions between private parties. She regularly represents defendants in asbestos-related personal injury cases.
Results
- Acted on a regular basis as lead environmental counsel for purchasers and sellers in more than 50 mergers and acquisitions transactions over the past three years involving facilities in a variety of industries, including transactions addressing gas-fired, coal-fired and solar power facilities, building material supply and manufacturing, petroleum storage and transfer, hospitals, and sulfuric acid and other chemical manufacturing facilities
- Served for the past ten years as a member of the national counsel team for a multinational corporation in significant product liability/toxic tort litigation, supervising and directing local counsel in several states in the southeast in the areas of development of case strategy, motion practice, expert witness development, conduct of trial, settlement negotiations, mediations and appeals
- Was lead environmental counsel to a major petroleum company in connection with a substantial corporate reorganization, managing the effort to identify and update more than 9,000 environmental permits and other governmental authorizations
- Supervised the remediation of properties in conjunction with state regulatory authorities across the country; recent efforts have included properties in Georgia, Idaho, New Jersey and Tennessee
- Represented a major athletic clothing manufacturer in a Clean Water Act enforcement action brought by the United States and a related permitting action before the Alabama Department of Environmental Management
Community
- American Bar Association
- DRI
- National Association of Women Lawyers
- MDI Biological Laboratory, Bar Harbor, Maine, board of trustees
Credentials
Education
American University – Washington College of Law, JD, cum laude, T. Morton McDonald Scholarship Award for Excellence in Legal Research, 1991
Georgetown University, AB, 1984
Admissions
District of Columbia
