NEWS & INSIGHTS

Washington, D.C. – Sidley Austin LLP is pleased to announce that Lisa E. Jones will join the firm as counsel in the environmental practice in Washington, D.C. Ms. Jones joins the firm from the U.S. Department of Justice, where she was an Assistant Section Chief to the Appellate Section of the Environment and Natural Resources Division.

“Lisa brings a wealth of knowledge and insight that will be greatly beneficial to our environmental and natural resources practice,” said David T. Buente, Jr., a global coordinator of Sidley’s environmental group. “Her extensive success litigating complex environmental and natural resources cases during her distinguished Justice Department career and her skill in navigating federal and state agencies on these issues will add greatly to the quality of service that we can offer clients.”

“I am very happy to be joining a distinguished firm with such a solid reputation in Washington,” said Ms. Jones. “This transition into private practice will give me the opportunity to broaden my platform and expand my resources on key environmental issues. I look forward to this next step in my career.”

Ms. Jones brings 18 years of experience with the DOJ to Sidley. While there, she supervised and conducted appellate litigation before the federal and state courts of appeals on behalf of federal agencies, such as the EPA, the Department of the Interior, the Department of Agriculture and the Department of Energy, in cases involving major environmental and natural resources laws. She also was the liaison for communications between the Appellate Section and the Office of the Solicitor General. She has handled more than 70 appellate arguments, helped draft many Supreme Court briefs and since 2006 has been an Assistant Section Chief supervising 26 attorneys and other staff. In addition to appellate work, she also spent a year developing and trying a major mining claims case at the district court level, which included a five week trial.

With her substantial litigation experience in Clean Air Act, Clean Water Act, RCRA, FIFRA, NEPA, the Endangered Species Act, Natural Historic Preservation Act, Native American issues and other statutes, Ms. Jones is highly capable of managing matters involving federal agency approvals of energy, railroads and other infrastructure-type projects, as well as all of the pollution-control statutes. In 2010, Ms. Jones received the John Marshall Award, the DOJ’s highest honor offered to attorneys for contributions and excellence in specific areas of legal performance.

Ms. Jones earned her J.D. from the University of Virginia, where she served on the editorial board of the Virginia Environmental Law Journal, and her B.S. from Vanderbilt University. She was a Judicial Law Clerk to the Honorable Damon J. Keith of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit in Detroit before joining the DOJ as an Honors Program lawyer assigned to the Appellate Section. Ms. Jones was also a member of the Department of Justice Association of Black Attorneys.

Sidley Austin LLP is one of the world’s premier full-service law firms, with approximately 1700 lawyers practicing in 18 U.S. and international cities, including Beijing, Brussels, Frankfurt, Geneva, Hong Kong, London, Shanghai, Singapore, Sydney and Tokyo. This year, Sidley celebrates 30 years in Asia. Repeating its performance in the inaugural 2010 survey, Sidley received the most first-tier national rankings of any U.S. law firm in the 2011/12 U.S.News – Best Lawyers “Best Law Firms” survey. Sidley was also named the U.S.News – Best Lawyers “Law Firm of the Year” in both Corporate Law and Securities Regulation in the 2011/12 survey (the first year of such designations). BTI, a Boston-based research and consulting firm, has named Sidley as one of only three firms to have been in the top ten of the BTI Client Service rankings every year since the inception of those rankings in 2001, and as number one in three of those years.

For more information:

, Director of Practice Development, 212.839.8797 
, Rubenstein Associates, 212.843.8007 


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