E. Donald Elliott Partner MAIN OFFICE: Washington Willkie Farr & Gallagher LLP 1875 K Street, N.W. Washington, D.C. 20006-1238, U.S.A. T 202-303-1120 F 202-303-2120

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E. Donald Elliott is Chair of the worldwide Environment, Health and Safety Department of Willkie Farr & Gallagher LLP and a partner in the Washington, D.C. office.  Mr. Elliott has over 30 years of experience in all aspects of environmental and product liability law, including having served as General Counsel of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (1989-91).  He advises companies in both the European Union and the U.S. on environmental aspects of complex corporate and real estate sales and acquisitions, and also represents companies and trade associations on major regulatory policy issues, class action litigation, product liability and legislative matters.

Mr. Elliott’s practice includes crisis management involving product and site contamination issues, as well as environmental advocacy and legislative work for companies, trade associations and governments. He has also successfully defended automotive, energy, mining, real estate development, and pharmaceutical companies in major government environmental enforcement cases.  He was the lead negotiator on the $1.1 billion, five plant NSR settlement between a Midwestern power company, EPA, and 3 states, which the New York Times called “one of the most significant settlements ever for cleaning the air.”  He was also the lead negotiator in the $1.8 billion civil and criminal consent decrees between the Puerto Rico Aqueduct and Sewer Authority and the federal government.  Mr. Elliott also assisted the Puerto Rico EQB in the signing of a Federal Facilities Agreement with the Navy, U.S. EPA, and DOI, regarding the Island of Vieques.

Mr. Elliott has extensive experience in the area of Clean Air Law.  During his tenure at EPA, Mr. Elliott played a crucial role in the development of the acid rain permit trading program, helping draft the program’s applicable statutes and regulations.  He was also responsible for crafting two out of the first three contracts on trading rights for acid rain.  The acid rain program has become the model for carbon trading worldwide.  Mr. Elliott served as General Counsel at EPA during the negotiations of the Rio Treaty, an international environmental agreement approved at the 1992 Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro.  This treaty led to the Joint Implementation and Clean Development Mechanism programs for carbon credit trading.

Mr. Elliott also has significant experience in class actions and complex product liability and toxic tort litigations, including having served as lead punitive damage trial counsel in Abate v. GAF, the 8,800-plaintiff Baltimore asbestos case. He has worked on many complex domestic and international corporate transactions, legislative and regulatory matters, audits and SEC disclosure issues. His clients include major automotive, energy, utility, chemical, financial services, oil, engineering and pharmaceutical companies, as well as trade associations and manufacturers of a wide variety of products.  In 2007, Mr. Elliott assisted Aearo Technologies, with respect to respirator liabilities (a significant component of the deal), in its $1.2 billion acquisition by 3M Company.  Also in 2007, Mr. Elliott also assisted Atlas Holdings in its acquisition of Finch paper, a deal that involved the sale of 161,000 acres of woodlands to the New York Nature Conservancy, the largest private conservation deal in its history.

Mr. Elliott also has expertise in Food & Drug law matters, representing biotechnology, pharmaceutical, and medical device companies in regulatory projects and transactions.  He has advised companies in over 30 transactions, including IPOs and other offerings.

Mr. Elliott was named one of the top 25 environmental attorneys in the United States by the National Law Journal, and among the top 400 worldwide by International Corporate Law.  He is listed in Chambers USA, Best Lawyers in America, Who’s Who in American Law, and Who’s Who in the World.

From 1981 through 1993, Mr. Elliott served as a tenured professor at the Yale Law School, teaching complex litigation, torts, environmental law, international chemicals law, carbon trading systems, toxic torts, administrative law and constitutional law. He continues as an adjunct professor of environmental and administrative law and complex civil litigation at the school. He has lectured to international audiences on international and comparative environmental law and risk management topics in Germany, Italy, Belgium, Spain, Brazil and the United States. He is the author of more than 60 articles in professional journals, and a treatise on environmental regulation of the chemical industry.

Mr. Elliott served as a member of the National Academy of Sciences Board on Environmental Studies and Toxicology, the top group that advises the federal government on environmental issues.  He formerly served on the Regulation Committee of the Administrative Conference of the United States, the OTA Committee on Innovative Regulatory Techniques, the Federal Courts Study Committee, the Carnegie Commission on Science, Technology and Government and Yale’s "Next Generation Project” to reform environmental laws.   Additionally, he served as Sector Chair for the National Environmental Policy Institute and Chair and Vice Chair of the American Bar Association’s Administrative Law & SONREEL Committees.   He is a member of the advisory boards of the Center for Clean Air Policy, the Environment Reporter, the Journal of Industrial Ecology and the Carnegie Mellon University Center for the Study and Improvement of Regulation.

From 1989 through 1991, Mr. Elliott served as General Counsel of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, where he was the primary legal advisor to EPA Administrator William Reilly.  At the EPA, he was responsible for managing 125 attorneys, a $15 million legal budget and a litigation docket of more than 450 cases.

Prior to joining Willkie in 2003, Mr. Elliott was a partner and Co-Chair of the national environmental practice group at Paul, Hastings, Janofsky & Walker LLP.  From 1991 through 1996, he was a partner and head of the Environmental and Product Safety Department in the Washington office of Fried, Frank, Harris, Shriver & Jacobsen.

From 1985 through 1989, Mr. Elliott served as Special Litigation Counsel, Corporate Environmental Programs, for the General Electric Company, where he was responsible for litigation strategy and supervision of outside counsel in more than 200 toxic tort cases involving asbestos, PCBs, chlorinated solvents, metals and hazardous wastes. In that position, he established a nationwide network of regional environmental counsel.  Mr. Elliott was later retained by General Electric to work on landfill methane capture programs.  In 1985, Mr. Elliott founded and managed an environmental legal consulting firm that advised corporations and law firms on tort law, complex litigation strategy and environmental law.

Following law school, Mr. Elliott served as law clerk to Judge Gerhard Gesell, U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, and thereafter he clerked for Chief Judge David Bazelon on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit.

Mr. Elliott is fluent in German and speaks limited Spanish.