Litigation

Ayres Law Group represents clients in highly consequential environmental matters in federal and state courts, with an emphasis on appellate advocacy. In our more than four decades of environmental law practice, our attorneys have handled nearly three-dozen federal trial and appellate court cases involving the interpretation and enforcement of the Clean Air Act and the National Environmental Policy Act. This experience gives us unique knowledge of the law and perspective on the courts.

We have represented clients in the United States Supreme Court, Federal Circuit Courts of Appeals, and Federal District Courts. In recent years we have successfully overturned and defended EPA regulations before the federal appeals courts on behalf of corporate clients. Other representative work includes authoring briefs in both of the U.S. Supreme Court Clean Air Act decisions handed down in 2007, and representing a state attorney general in a potentially precedent-setting common law nuisance action in federal district court and the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit.

The firm focuses on environmental litigation related to air pollution, climate change and energy.

Our legal team

Our lawyers’ record of successful litigation outcomes includes:

• Obtained nuisance judgment requiring installation of pollution controls on four large power plants in the Tennessee Valley Authority system (decision formed the basis of omnibus settlement with EPA, four states, and other litigants that will substantially reduce TVA emissions)
• Developed litigation strategy and litigated case that resulted in remand of EPA regulation under Title VI of the Clean Air Act
• Settled the largest enforcement case ever brought by EPA under Clean Air Act mobile source requirements on behalf of a multinational engine manufacturer
• Won the largest monetary settlement of a private air pollution matter in U.S. history on behalf of residents of a small Ohio town (Utility Buys Town it Choked, Lock, Stock, and Blue Plume, AEP Agrees to Buy Out Entire Town)
• Obtained consent decrees in 1980 in litigation against the Tennessee Valley Authority that cut national emissions of sulfur oxides by 5 percent (Public Power and Public Interest: An Analysis of the TVA Air Pollution Litigation)

We work with our clients to identify their core interests and keep the door open to a favorable settlement, minimizing time and costs. We are accomplished litigators with a demonstrated record of success in achieving favorable results for our clients in complex, high-stakes multi-party environmental litigation.