Mr. Fort’s practice includes all environmental media. His practice includes internal environmental investigations and audits, the design and implementation of environmental compliance programs and systems, and evaluation of self-reporting and voluntary compliance strategies. He also has extensive experience in complex air regulation and permitting matters and in creating and transferring emission credits. He has nearly 30 years' experience in remedial clean-ups, including developing risk and exposure assessments for potentially toxic chemicals and natural resource damages. These risk-based evaluations have also extended to worker safety and public exposure disputes and for the regulation of toxic substances. He has extensive experience in issues related to contaminated sediments and remedial options. He has successfully litigated before all levels of state and federal courts and negotiated with all varieties of local state and federal environmental agencies.
Mr. Fort is also co-directing the firm’s Climate Change practice, which coordinates several different practice areas within the firm.
Mr. Fort has been involved in environmental law since his graduation, including a clerkship for Justice John M. Karns, Jr. of the Illinois Appellate Court. He has been an adjunct professor of law, teaching the environmental law and advanced environmental law courses at the Northwestern University School of Law (1990 - 1993).
A former chair of the Environmental Law Committee of the Chicago Bar Association and of the Lake Michigan States Section of the Air & Waste Management Association, Mr. Fort is a frequent lecturer on environmental topics for various professional groups and is listed in Chambers U.S.A., America’s Leading Lawyers for Business - 2006; and Who’s Who Legal USA: Environmental 2006 as one of USA’s leading practitioners in this field.
Some of the reported decisions in which he was a principal advocate for the prevailing party include: Waukegan Community School District v. Orix Real Estate Equities, Inc. N.D. Ill. 02C 2445 (November 13, 2003); Neighbors for a Toxic Free Community v. Vulcan Materials Co., 964 F.Supp. 1448; 45 ERC 1270 (D. Colo., April 25, 1997) Kerr-McGee v. Lefton, 14 F.3d 321 (7th Cir. 1994); North Shore Gas Company v. EPA, 753 F.Supp. 1413 (N.D. Ill. 1990) aff’d, 930 F.2d 1239 (7th Cir. 1991); United States v. Distler, 741 F.Supp. 643 (W.D. Ky. 1990); Illinois State Chamber of Commerce v. U.S. EPA, 775 F.2d 1141 (7th Cir. 1985); United States v. Riverside Laboratories, 678 F.Supp. 1352; (N.D. Ill. 1988) (counsel for defendant Riverside Laboratories). Mr. Fort has successfully resolved many other claims without the need for trial or publicity.
For additional information regarding Mr. Fort's Climate Change experience, click here.
Admitted to the Bar:
Illinois; United States Supreme Court and the Courts of Appeals for the D.C. and Seventh Circuits