Member Bio
Kimberly L. Bick has been practicing environmental law since she graduated from Stanford Law School in 1990. Prior to law school, she enjoyed being the client of environmental lawyers, as one of the first environmental engineers for McDonnell Douglas Corporation (now Boeing Co.) handling all compliance programs and regulatory matters at the Southern California manufacturing facilities. Her responsibilities included air, waste, water, spill reporting, and Superfund cleanups. Her experience on the business side as a client continues to inform her environmental practice and gives her valuable insight into how to focus on her clients’ needs, communicate effectively, and work with her clients as part of a client-lawyer team.
Kim represents clients in complex environmental litigation, including private cost recovery actions, mass and toxic tort defense, defense of agency enforcement actions, rulemaking proceedings, compliance counseling, and corporate and real estate transactions. Her areas of expertise include CERCLA, RCRA, CWA, Prop 65, CEQA, NEPA, ESA, and NRDA. In particular, Kim has extensive experience in Superfund work and has managed large Superfund matters in a cost effective and efficient manner, whether the matter is vis-Ã -vis other PRPs, or vis-Ã -vis the government, or both.
Kim also has experience in cutting edge areas of environmental law, including regulation of green house gases, green chemistry, REACH, e-waste, battery recycling, and packaging.
Kim also has advised corporate clients on Global Reporting Initiative programs and other environmental and social responsibility issues, such as responsible sourcing, supply chain transparency, and responsible manufacturing. She also advises corporations regarding pending shareholder proposals on environmental issues.
Her clients are national and multi-national Fortune 500 companies and her work crosses the globe including Washington, Oregon, California, Hawaii, Arizona, New York, Vermont, Maine, Minnesota, Washington, D.C., the EU, Mexico, Indonesia, Hong Kong, and China.
Prior to attending law school, Kim earned both her M.S. in Civil Engineering and her B.S. in Environmental Earth Sciences from Stanford University.
After graduating from Stanford Law School, with distinction, she clerked for Judge Patricia M. Wald of the U.S. Court of Appeals, District of Columbia.
Kim began her environmental law career in the early 1990s as an associate in Washington, D.C. at Covington & Burling. Since then she has worked as an environmental law associate at Morrison & Foerster in Irvine, CA, and Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher in Irvine, CA, and as the head of the Environmental Practice Group at Irell & Manella, LLP, in Newport Beach, CA. During the course of her career, she also took some time off to focus on being a mom to her two children, both now in college.