Linda has over 25 years of environmental law and land use experience. Over the course of her career, she has managed numerous complex litigation matters. She has successfully resolved disputes ranging from site remediation to endangered species, and has particular experience with marine resources and sediments issues.
Linda served as staff counsel and aide to Senator Warren Magnuson on the U.S. Senate Appropriations Committee and as an attorney with, and Special Assistant to, the Deputy Administrator of the National Oceanic & Atmospheric Administration. She practiced for many years with Heller Ehrman, and chaired its Northwest environmental practice group.
Linda is active in community affairs. She is the Chair of the Board of Directors of Public Radio International. She served on the Board of Trustees of the Seattle Public Library from 1997 to 2006 and was President of the Board in 2002 and 2003 during the design and construction of the internationally recognized Seattle Central Library.
Representative Experience
- Represented major fishing processing company in challenge to National Marine Fisheries Service allocations for multi-million dollar Bering Sea Pacific cod fishery.
- Acting as lead counsel to ASARCO LLC, a former mining, smelting and refining company, to defend ASARCO in the first evidentiary estimation hearing in connection with the largest environmental bankruptcy case in United States history. The hearing, at the U.S. Bankruptcy Court in the Southern District of Texas, involved a $406 million claim for response costs brought by the United States Environmental Protection Agency and the State of Nebraska.
- Acted as lead coordinating counsel for multiple fishing industry parties in the defense of a challenge under the Endangered Species Act involving Steller sea lions and the Bering Sea, Aleutian Islands, and Gulf of Alaska fishery management plans; Greenpeace, American Oceans Campaign v. National Marine Fisheries Service, 237 F. Supp. 2d 1181 (W.D. Wash 2000), 106 F. Supp. 2d 1066 (W.D. Wash. 2000), 198 F.R.D. 540 (W.D. Wash. 2000), 80 F. Supp. 2d 1137 (W.D. Wash. 2000), 55 F. Supp. 2d 1248 (W.D. Wash. 1999).
- Represented a municipality in Eastern Washington in a cost-recovery and contribution action seeking to recover millions of dollars in remediation costs for a drinking water well field that was contaminated by solvents flowing from a former military base, now a federal Superfund site.
- Assisted an aluminum manufacturer in the remediation of contaminated sediments and associated uplands at a former aluminum smelter along the Columbia River, including the negotiation of consent decrees under the Washington Model Toxics Control Act and resolution of allocation issues between client and other potentially liable parties.