Joseph Zaleski

Joseph is an attorney in the Environmental and Toxic Tort and Exposure Litigation Practice group, focusing his national environmental practice on litigation in federal and state courts, statutory and regulatory compliance counseling, and enforcement defense. He has negotiated settlements with the U.S. Department of Justice, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, state environmental regulators, and citizen suit plaintiffs, and he also regularly advises clients on administrative review and public comment processes, including Administrative Procedure Act challenges to rulemakings. Joseph is actively assisting clients navigate novel and technically complex issues around emerging contaminants of potential concern, like PFAS, 1,4-dioxane, and microplastics.

Joseph has extensive experience with the cornerstone federal environmental statutes, including the Clean Air Act (stationary and mobile source); Clean Water Act; Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act (CERCLA/Superfund); Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA); Federal Insecticide, Fungicide, and Rodenticide Act (FIFRA); Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA); National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA); Endangered Species Act; Marine Mammal Protection Act; and National Historic Preservation Act.

Joseph's experience also extends to critical state-level environmental laws like the California Environmental Quality Act and the California Green Chemistry Law/Department of Toxic Substances Control’s Safer Consumer Products program, as well as cutting edge areas of concern like PFAS consumer protection statutes and Extended Producer Responsibility waste management regimes.

Joseph regularly represents clients across a spectrum of industries, including manufacturing, traditional and alternative energy generation, refining, mining, pharmaceuticals, chemical manufacture, transportation and logistics, automotive (including electric vehicle manufacturers), consumer products, food and beverage, and brick-and-mortar and e-commerce retailers.

Joseph regularly partners with third-party technical consultants and experts to provide a complete scope of counseling, including engineers, toxicologists, chemists, hydrogeologists, materials scientists, and economists.

Joseph also maintains an active pro bono practice, representing immigrants in removal actions involving asylum/Convention Against Torture claims, partnering with state innocence project organizations to evaluate actual innocence claims for convicted individuals, and advising victim’s rights advocacy groups of state laws and regulations related to mandatory medical reporting and Title IX investigations.

Prior to joining Shook, Joseph was an environmental practice group managing associate in the Washington, DC office of Sidley Austin LLP and he was also previously seconded with Vineyard Wind, which has built the nation’s first commercial-scale offshore wind development project. Joseph graduated from the University of Virginia School of Law where he was an executive editor for the Virginia Environmental Law Journal.