James J. Periconi

Mr. Periconi focuses on both litigation and regulatory matters, as it relates to environmental law matters. He has had substantial experience representing clients both in governmental actions brought for remediation of Superfund and other contaminated sites and in private cost recovery actions. Mr. Periconi has twice been appointed a federal court Special Master in Clean Water Act cases and often acts as an expert witness in environmental law in federal and state actions, most recently in a half-billion dollar environmental insurance coverage case.

From 1987 through 1989, Mr. Periconi served as Chief of the Solid and Hazardous Waste Enforcement Bureau of the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation. During his tenure there, he oversaw the nation’s largest and most complex state Superfund program.

From 1982 to 1987, Mr. Periconi was an Assistant Attorney General in the Environmental Protection Bureau of the New York State Department of Law, where, among other matters, he prosecuted the first hazardous waste felony jury trial to corporate and individual convictions in New York, and sued the United States Environmental Protection Agency in one of the earliest “acid rain” cases. He served as an Assistant District Attorney in the New York County District Attorney’s Office from 1977 to 1980.

Before founding Periconi, LLC in 2003, Mr. Periconi headed or co-headed the environmental law practice at several medium and large New York general practice law firms.

Mr. Periconi is admitted to practice in New York State, as well as in the United States Courts of Appeal for the Second, Third and Sixth Circuits, and all federal district courts in New York.  He was chair of the Environmental Law Section of the New York State Bar Association in 2003-2004. Mr. Periconi was the Chairman of the Board of INFORM, Inc., a New York-based national environmental organization, from 2004-2006.

Mr. Periconi is the author of numerous articles, including “Environmental Due Diligence in Real Estate Transactions”, which appeared in Bloomberg Corporate Law Journal (Vol. 3, #1) (2008); co-author, with Matthew R. Jokajtys, of “Shining Some Light Back on the Dark Ages: New York State’s Early Environmental Law and Its Implications for Today’s Environmental Insurance Coverage Disputes”, which appeared in Environmental Claims Journal, 26:4, 287-300 (2014); he is co-author of “CERCLA ‘Passive’ Disposal Through Migration: Still Alive and Kicking,” which appeared in the Toxics Law Reporter and the Environment Reporter (BNA, 2001), and with David Nelson, “The Precedent Setting Use of a Pollution Prevention Project in An EPA Enforcement Settlement: The First Dollar-For-Dollar Penalty Offset,” which appeared in the same publications in 1994. A frequent lecturer on environmental law topics, he is a primary co-author of Environmental Law and Regulation in New York (West, 1996), a part of West’s award-winning New York Practice series.

Mr. Periconi is a graduate of Regis High School (New York), Columbia University (B.A., 1970). In 1972, as a Danforth Graduate Fellow, he received an M.A. in English and Comparative Literature from the University of Virginia. He received his law degree from New York University in 1977.

When he is not practicing law, Mr. Periconi is often working on his non-legal book collection of more than 20 years, cataloguing it, adding to it, making works available to scholars or himself doing research with it. He even has a website for people to find out about his avocational interest, said to be the most significant private collection of such materials in the country: Italian-Language American Imprints: The Periconi Collection (omeka.net)

• CYTEC INDUSTRIES INC., Plaintiff, v. ALLNEX (LUXEMBOURG) & CY S.C.A., Defendant.
• The State Of Environmental Crimes Prosecutions in New York Winter 2009 ABA’s Natural Resources & Environment Journal
• New York Law Journal December 10, 2008 – New Duties to Tell Tenants If Indoor Air Tests Exceed Markers
• New York’s New Brownfield Cleanup Law
• Greenhouse Gas Emissions: Does the Clean Air Act Already Provide the Legal Basis for Regulating Them?
• Federal Brownfields Law Provides Two Types of Liability Protection
• CERCLA “Passive” Disposal Through Migration
• Cell Towers: Powers And Limitations for Municipalities

• New York Real Estate Journal: January 31, 2012 “N.Y.C.’s Greener, Greater Buildings Plan: The time is Now”
• New York Real Estate Journal: December 13, 2011 James Periconi Profile Reprint
• Real Estate Weekly: February 1, 2012: “Time is now for New York’s green, great buildings plan”
• New York Real Estate Journal: March 27, 2012: “Why commercial real property investors need an environmental attorney”
• Mann Report: January 2012 “Protecting the Environmental Interests of the Business Community” — Full Text
• Green Building: There’s No Escaping It