Brian Land is of counsel in the Firm’s Environmental Transactional Practice Group. Prior to 2019, Brian was leader of the Group. Since 1989, his practice has focused on managing environmental compliance and liability issues as they arise in the context of corporate and real estate transactions, both in the U.S. and around the world. His work includes conducting or coordinating environmental due diligence reviews, retaining and supervising technical experts, counseling clients on environmental liability and risk allocation issues, drafting and negotiating contract language, negotiating environmental insurance, and pursuing post-closing resolution of environmental issues. Brian has managed the environmental aspects of hundreds of successfully consummated transactions involving a wide range of industrial and commercial businesses, including manufacturing business, chemical companies, electric power producers, and service industries with large property portfolios.
Brian also counsels clients concerning hazardous substance releases and contamination matters, including with regard to reporting and notification requirements, drinking water protection, worker protection, vapor intrusion, exposure pathways, investigations and cleanups, and voluntary cleanup and brownfield programs. He assists clients with communications with the community and the press and advises on toxic tort concerns.
Brian also provides advice for compliance with environmental regulations, assisting clients with environmental permitting, compliance audits, future regulatory requirements. He also represents clients in negotiations with EPA and state environmental agencies.
Brian has spoken on panels and presented papers at environmental law conferences, including “Environmental Due Diligence for Power Plant Transactions,” at the Energy Utility and Environmental Conference, Tucson, Arizona in January 2007 and at the ABA Conference on Environmental Law, Keystone, Colorado, in March 2007 and “Transactions Involving Brownfields and Environmentally Impaired Properties,” at the ABA Super Conference on Environmental Law, San Francisco, in March 2015, and he coauthored “Managing Environmental Risks in Spin-off Transactions,” for the ABA Super Conference on Environmental Law, Austin, Texas, in March 2016. In 2005, Brian was a founder of the Environmental Transactional Roundtable, an annual conference of environmental transactional attorneys who meet for continuing legal education and to discuss current environmental transactional issues.
With 16 lawyers, Kirkland's Environmental Transactional Practice Group is the largest such group in the world and the group manages the environmental aspects of all types of transactions encompassing all types of businesses. Kirkland’s environmental group was named "Environmental Law Group of the Year" in 2010 and 2011 by Law360.
Brian is recognized in Chambers USA, America's Leading Lawyers for Business, in The Legal 500 U.S. for Environment: Transaction and Regulatory, as a leading lawyer in Who's Who Legal, as a Superlawyer, and in The Best Lawyers in America for Environmental Law.
