Nicole L. Leonard
Principal
vCard
- Air
- Alternative Energy - Environmental
- Alternative Energy - Land Use
- Brownfields - Land Use
- Clean Water Act
- Climate Change
- Complex Project Permitting
- Corporate Transactional
- Emergency Planning and Community Right-to-Know
- Endangered Species Act - Land Use
- Environmental Audits and Compliance Assessments
- Environmental Due Diligence
- Environmental Litigation
- Environmental Management
- Hazardous Waste/RCRA
- Land Use and Natural Resources
- Land Use and Natural Resources - Environmental
- NEPA and State NEPA - Environmental
- NEPA and State NEPA - Land Use
- Real Estate
- Safe Drinking Water Act
- Site Remediation
- Solid Waste and Resource Recovery
- Spill Response and Reporting
- Superfund/CERCLA
- Water Supply and Quality - Environmental
- Water Supply and Quality - Land Use
- Wetlands - Environmental
- Wetlands - Land Use
- Environmental
- Land Use
- Gustavus Adolphus College (B.A., magna cum laude, 1995)
- Duke University School of Law (J.D., 1999)
- California (2002)
- District of Columbia (inactive) (2000)
- Maryland (inactive) (1999)
- U.S Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit (2002)
- U.S District Court, Northern District of California (2002)
- U.S District Court, Central District of California (2003)
- U.S District Court, Southern District of California (2003)
- American Bar Association, Section of Environment, Energy, and Resources
- California Bar, Environmental Section
Nicole L. Leonard is a Principal in the San Francisco office of Beveridge & Diamond, P.C., focusing on environmental, land use, and climate change matters. Her practice covers a wide array of federal statutes and related state and local regulatory schemes, including the Clean Air Act, Clean Water Act, CERCLA, EPCRA, RCRA, NEPA/CEQA, ESA, OSHA, as well as developing climate change and greenhouse gas regulations.
Ms. Leonard’s environmental practice includes regulatory counseling, permitting, and compliance and enforcement matters involving air, water, waste, health and safety, natural resources, and other environmental issues. She regularly counsels clients on air compliance issues, ranging from general compliance advice, to permitting and NSR/PSD issues, to the banking and sale of emission reduction credits, to defending agency enforcement actions, including several matters under the South Coast Air Quality Management District’s Regional Clean Air Incentives Market (“RECLAIM”) program. Ms. Leonard also assists clients in developing and implementing environmental compliance programs and in conducting self-audits and voluntary disclosures.
Ms. Leonard advises clients on all aspects of climate change issues, including the impacts of emerging greenhouse gas regulatory regimes at the international, federal, regional, and state levels. Ms. Leonard has represented clients in the purchase and sale of certified emission reductions under the Clean Development Mechanism of the Kyoto Protocol, as well as in the sale of emission reduction credits for use as offsets.
Ms. Leonard’s land use and project development experience includes representing clients in all aspects of developing brownfield and greenfield properties, including conducting due diligence, assisting clients in the remediation and clean up of contaminated sites, preparing and negotiating purchase/sale agreements and related transactional documents, and assisting in project design, permitting, and entitlement issues. She prepares CEQA documentation and related environmental documents associated with projects in California, and she performs environmental due diligence in real property acquisitions and divestures.
In addition, Ms. Leonard has represented clients in a variety of litigation matters, from private party cost recovery actions, to toxic tort, to intellectual property matters, to general commercial disputes.
Ms. Leonard received her J.D. from Duke University School of Law in 1999. She was a member of the Duke Journal of Environmental Law and Policy and the Duke Journal of Gender Law and Policy, Co-Chair of the Environmental Society, and Teaching Assistant for Legal Research and Writing. Ms. Leonard graduated Magna Cum Laude from Gustavus Adolphus College in 1995, with her B.A. in Economics and History. She was on the Dean’s List, and was a member of Alpha Kappa Psi, an honorary fraternity. Ms. Leonard is a member of the environmental sections of the American Bar Association and the California Bar Association, and she is admitted to practice in California, the District of Columbia (inactive), and Maryland (inactive).
