March/April 1991
Environmental consultants and lawyers can be valuable resources to your company. But how do you find the right firm? Here are some answers.
By Robin K. Wiener
Robin K. Wiener is director of environmental compliance for the Institute of Scrap Recycling Industries (Washington, D.C.).
Complying with the range of environmental regulations that exist today on the federal, state, and local levels is extremely difficult, especially if you don’t have the resources to hire a full-time employee devoted to environmental matters. Making use of the services available from environmental consulting and/or law firms can help. These firms may be used on an ongoing basis to keep you abreast of upcoming changes in the environmental laws, or can be hired as needed for specific projects.
In any case, the process of finding the right consultant or lawyer can be a frustrating experience. The guidelines that follow, however, should help to alleviate such difficulties
Finding the Right Consultant
Perhaps the most difficult part of hiring a consultant is finding the right consulting firm. Unfortunately, there are very few sources of information on the capabilities and experience of consultants. Simply looking in the phone book is of little or no help the following points should provide some assistance:
1. Know Your Needs. Before you actually start looking for a consultant, define as clearly and specifically as possible what your need is. Your initial list of prospects w ill depend heavily upon the kind of work you need done.
Are you looking for groundwater testing? If so, you require a firm with hydrogeology experience and should seek consultants with such capability. Do you need information on the impact of an upcoming regulation? In this case, a firm with regulatory/policy expertise is more appropriate.
You also need to consider whether to use a full-service or specialty firm. Full-service consultants can perform a broad range of functions, including environmental engineering, health and safety, toxicology, risk assessment, and construction services. While access to such comprehensive services may be desirable, full-service firms can be more costly than smaller specialty firms and you may find that you do not need the range of services they offer.
2. Identify Potential Bidders. One of the best ways of identifying qualified consultants is by asking scrap industry professionals for recommendations of firms in your area with which they have had good experiences.
The Institute of Scrap Recycling Industries (ISRI) (Washington, D.C.) maintains a file of consulting firms; however, only a limited number of firms are included and their inclusion is not based on any past experience with the firm. Therefore, the association does not make recommendations as to the capabilities of the firms listed. (ISRI also maintains a brief describing the manner in which a consultant's investigative report for a client can be protected in the discovery phase of a legal proceeding related to the subject matter of the investigation.)
Other good sources of consulting firm listings include professional organizations such as the Institute for Environmental Auditing, the Environmental Auditing Roundtable, the Environmental Forum, and the American Academy of Environmental Engineers, which publishes a directory of board-certified consultants. For information on obtaining the guide, titled "Environmental Engineering Selection Guide 1990, contact the academy at 301/266-3311.
3. Solicit Proposals. Develop a written scope of work for the project for which you are seeking assistance. Even if you do not plan on requesting formal bids from several firms, it is still useful to write down for your own records your expectations of the work to be done.
If you choose to take an informal approach, call the candidate firms and discuss their qualifications, experience, and interest in taking on new projects. If time permits, request a written qualification statement from each firm. At a minimum, the statements should include a description of the consultant's proposed technical approach to your project, descriptions of previous projects done for other clients, resumes of all those who will be working on the project and their availability over the term of the contract, client references, and proposed project costs.
When requesting cost information, you should ask for a quote for the estimated total project cost, as well as a listing of the hourly billing rates by labor category (for example, project manager or staff engineer) of all the personnel the consultant proposes to use on the project. Billing costs are a good means of comparing costs between firms. They also will help you estimate potential cost overruns.
4. Compare Your Needs to Bidders' Qualifications and Hire the Most Appropriate Firm. Selection of the consultant should be based on the quality of responses you receive from each candidate. If you've received many responses, narrow the list to a few and interview the top candidates, either in person or over the telephone. Successful completion of the project will greatly depend on the consultant's communication skills.
When making your final selection, do not use cost as the primary factor in your decision. Cost can often be misleading and if a bid is very low compared with others, it may indicate that the firm does not have a good understanding of the project you want done. The most important factor should always be how well the firm's qualifications and experience match your needs.
Other things to consider include the strength of the references and the reputation and experience of the consultant. When contacting references, be sure to ask each reference questions concerning the quality of the work they received and whether their project was completed within budget and on time. Also be sure to check whether the consulting personnel identified for your project worked on the references' jobs.
Maintaining Quality Control
Once you've hired a consulting firm, how can you ensure that the firm stands behind its work and does a good job for you? First, during the initial phase of work, it is a good idea-and fairly standard-to include in the consulting contract a clause specifying that the fin-n agrees to use due care in the performance of its work. The consultant may wish to modify the contract further by adding a cap on potential liability based on the level of insurance coverage available.
It is also important to encourage open communication between you and the consultant throughout the project and to establish procedures for reporting progress. This can be done through weekly or monthly written progress reports. In addition, it's helpful to hold periodic meetings with the consultant to discuss potential problems or unforeseen issues. The earlier problems are detected, the smoother the project will run.
Hiring an Environmental Attorney
The process of hiring an attorney is very different from that of hiring a consultant. Although it is still extremely important for you to know your needs before you seek and hire an environmental attorney, it is not a common practice to solicit proposals from the law firms you are considering. Instead, the following steps are generally followed.
1. Identify Prospective Attorneys. As with consultants, the best way to find an environmental attorney is by word of mouth. One of the first places to start looking for recommendations is with your general counsel. In addition, you may wish to approach other scrap processors, consumers, and others in the environmental field for recommendations of a good attorney. Speaking with representatives of companies that have had environmental audits done of their facilities or have been involved in a federal or state Superfund cleanup is often helpful. Another good source of law firms is Martindale Hubbell, a directory of law firms that lists attorneys by geographic area as well as by specialty. Most law libraries, and some public libraries, have a copy of this directory in their reference section. In addition, you may want to contact the local bar association; although many bar associations will not provide referrals, they may suggest other referral sources.
2. Select the Right Firm. Once you have compiled a list of prospective attorneys, you should screen the list. Generally, the screening process is less formal than that for hiring consultants. Most companies do not go through a written solicitation of bids; instead they contact the firms by telephone and set up meetings to discuss the potential work. During these conversations, you should consider the attorney's experience, practice size, personal style, and fees before making your decision.
Many ReMA members wonder why the association does not make lawyer referrals or does not provide common legal counsel for association members involved in disputes with federal or state environmental agencies. The reasons are simple: ReMA does not make references because it simply doesn't have the relevant hands-on experience with environmental attorneys across the country and is precluded from providing counsel to individual members due to the limited resources of its staff (one attorney for 1,800 member firms). In cases involving Superfund issues, another problem arises: conflict of interest. At any given cleanup site, more than one ReMA member may be involved and the interests of the different members may diverge, raising potentially serious ethical questions for any attorney trying to represent more than one client.
Hiring an outside contractor is rarely easy, but often necessary. If you think you could benefit from the services available from environmental consultants and lawyers, and follow the guidelines presented, the task should be worth the effort.•
Environmental consultants and lawyers can be valuable resources to your company. But how do you find the right firm? Here are some answers.