Counsel to Counsel - May 2008 - (Page 19)

A Railroad’s Environmental Legacy Union Pacific Railroad Company and Patton Boggs LLP T By Steven Andersen Young sent letters to the approximately 80 law firms then doing environmental work for UP asking them to assess their own value , and the capabilities they could provide. Some firms didn’t respond at all. Some submissions were so bad the firms were easily eliminated. The rest were invited for interviews. One of those firms was Patton Boggs LLP . “UP’s legacy of past operations had to be addressed by this generation of the company,” says Carolyn L. McIntosh, a partner in Patton Boggs’ Environmental group. “We were looking for ways we could partner with UP to more efficiently address what had become, due to the evolution of environmental regulation, an economic component of their operations that previously didn’t exist.” Patton Boggs made the cut, one of just 25 firms remaining after the company’s winnowing process. For Young, the firms’ attitude and approach were essential. “I look for firms that can deliver good value on the life cycle of a matter,” he says. “Rates are an issue that everybody is concerned about, but ultimately you don’t pay the hourly rate; you pay whatever the total cost is over the life cycle of the matter. We want firms that deliver efficient resolution of matters on a consistent basis.” he history of the Union Pacific Railroad Company is rich and integral to the settlement of the West. Founded in 1862 under a federal land grant, UP was the original transcontinental railroad, joined with a golden spike at Promontory Point, Utah. It’s the railroad that famously hunted down Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid for repeatedly harrying its trains. Today UP is the largest railroad in the United States, with more than 30,000 miles of track and hundreds of rail yards throughout the West. But with such a long history and vast size come a legacy of environmental liabilities. Fuel tank leaks (UP is the largest user of diesel in the United States), cleaners and heavy metals historically used in the repair and routine maintenance of cars and locomotives have contaminated many of the company’s current and former properties. “We get notices on sites from the 1800s, properties we sold more than 100 years ago,” says David P Young, Union Pacific’s . general solicitor and national environmental counsel. “With these types of environmental issues, there isn’t a finite point of resolution. It’s an ongoing process.” Consolidation Effort When Young took over the railroad’s environmental legal affairs in 2000, he set out to systematize the company’s approach to its legacy issues. “One of the things we noticed was that we had a lot of outside vendors, both consultants and law firms,” Young recalls. “We started a consolidation effort to narrow that field down.” From left, David P. Young, Union Pacific Railroad Company; Carolyn L. McIntosh, Patton Boggs LLP May 2008 martindale.com/c2c profiles in partnership Photography by Allred Photography 19 http://www.martindale.com/c2c

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of Counsel to Counsel - May 2008

Counsel to Counsel - May 2008 Contents Harassment Policies NEC Corporation of America and Duane Morris LLP Lost or Stolen Data: Minimizing Fallout On-Boarding the Board Drafting Fair, Efficient and Enforceable Arbitration Agreements Responding to Counterfeit Products Crafting an English-Only Workplace Policy Distressed Debt: New Players, Global Sophistication Make Restructuring More Complex IP Confidential: Plan Ahead, Act Fast to Protect Your Trade Secrets Adverse Changes: Think Ahead in a Strained M&A Market Optimizing Web 2.0 Technology: Expanding Your Professional Network Union Pacific Railroad Company and Patton Boggs LLP Warming Warning: Develop Your Climate Change Strategy Now Risk Sharing: Expect New Obstacles and Expenses in Syndicated Loans E-Discovery in Action Diversification at the Gate Energy

Counsel to Counsel - May 2008

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