John Bechtold Shortess

John Shortess practices in the areas of environmental litigation and environmental regulatory and commercial transactional counseling. He represents a number of industry clients including electric utilities, oil and gas companies, chemical manufacturing plants, agricultural and industrial manufacturing plants, and railroad transportation companies. His regulatory practice has involved the defense and resolution of numerous enforcement actions and permitting matters before the Louisiana Department of Environmental Quality and in state court, counseling on water, air, solid waste, reporting, remediation and corrective action, brownfields, and other regulatory issues involving both state and federal regulators and environmental compliance counseling. His commercial transactional practice involves counsel to sellers, buyers, and lenders concerning environmental due diligence, permitting, and compliance issues. His litigation experience involves the defense of oil and gas related property damage claims, train derailment related claims, and other environmental contamination claims.

From 1992 to 1996, Mr. Shortess worked at the Louisiana Department of Environmental Quality where he was employed as a Geologist in the Ground Water Protection Division. He oversaw and evaluated the development, implementation and performance of ground water monitoring and corrective action plans at sites throughout the state of Louisiana.