Founded in 1988 as a boutique environmental law firm offering environmental counseling and complex litigation services, today Plews Shadley Racher & Braun LLP (PSRB) has one of the largest environmental and insurance coverage practices in the Midwest. Their breadth and depth of experience and technical knowledge allow PSRB’s attorneys to handle complex issues and everyday client matters in the areas of insurance coverage, environmental, litigation, real estate, and business law. Clientele include Fortune 500 multi-national companies, mid-market entities, small businesses, and individuals, often with hundreds of millions of dollars at stake. Client business sectors include manufacturers, utilities, municipalities, petroleum marketers, transportation companies, and large and small businesses of every sort. PSRB’s attorneys are entrepreneurial, purpose-driven, and committed to working with clients in all stages of business growth or succession planning. The firm is headquartered in Indianapolis, Indiana, with an office in South Bend, Indiana.
Main Areas of Practice
Insurance Coverage: PSRB’s insurance coverage practice is the largest in Indiana, national in scope, and represents policyholders. The firm has been instrumental in shaping Indiana law (and elsewhere) by successfully handling many of Indiana’s most important insurance coverage decisions. PSRB brings experience in a variety of insurance-policy types and coverages, including: liability claims, property losses, environmental, D&O, E&O, cyber, health, disability, life, and major auto disputes. The firm also represents policyholders in claims against insurance agents and brokers and help clients with all facets of insurance recovery. Whether it is arbitration, trial, or an appeal, clients regularly seek PSRB’s assistance to handle insurance-recovery litigation. The attorneys also advise clients before there is a dispute and help clients find the coverage they need. This coverage portfolio review and risk assessment can help policyholders avoid disputes down the road when an unexpected claim arises.
Environmental: PSRB is one of the leading environmental law firms in Indiana and has focused on this area since the firm opened. Our attorneys have decades of experience in front of both federal and state regulatory agencies, and our clients benefit from our knowledge of the complex history behind environmental laws. Our team includes engineers and environmental science majors that feel comfortable with industrial processes. Our technical and scientific backgrounds allow us to fully understand clients’ special needs and to creatively solve their environmental legal problems from compliance counseling to enforcement to permitting. PSRB works with clients on a broad variety of regulation and permitting under the Clean Air Act, the Clean Water Act, and the Resource Conservation & Recovery Act (RCRA), as well as the corresponding state programs implementing these federal acts. We assist clients with cleanups and responses performed under both state and federal programs. We have experience working with local governmental authorities for your environmental issues, and can assist with due diligence and compliance issues around the country. PSRB’s environmental attorneys are comfortable with both administrative and litigation within courts ensuring that your same team can handle your issues from start to finish. Finally, PSRB will help you structure your transactions to limit or control your environmental liabilities.
Litigation: PSRB is experienced and knowledgeable in all aspects of litigation in state and federal courts as well as administrative proceedings. From minor disputes to complex, bet-the-company litigation, PSRB is equipped to handle litigation needs. The firm has successfully litigated a wide range of cases including environmental disputes, insurance coverage and recovery, products liability, medical malpractice, construction and design defects, class actions, employment claims, commercial & business disputes, catastrophic injury, wrongful death, and real estate litigation. Whether litigation or arbitration is required, the firm’s strategic approach is designed to get the best possible result for the client while minimizing inconvenience and costs.
Real Estate: PSRB has been helping clients acquire, develop, finance, manage, lease, and sell commercial real estate for more than 35 years. The depth of the firm’s real estate practice encompasses virtually every aspect of commercial property transactions, including acquisitions, dispositions, developments, financings, construction, sale and leasebacks, space and ground leasing, land use, zoning and environmental issues, including assisting clients with environmental due diligence, regulatory compliance through state and federal remediation programs, liability for environmental cleanups and securing third-party funding sources to assist with cleanup costs and other real estate associated environmental issues. PSRB has experience with all types of real estate, including office, apartments, retail, industrial, condominiums, hotels, and mixed-use. The firm’s experienced real estate team also advises clients on condemnation, zoning and land use, and property tax issues and provides their clients with the expertise to maintain and maximize the value of their properties. With a full-service litigation practice, if any dispute over real estate evolves into litigation, they are well qualified to represent their clients in litigation in state and federal courts at all levels, as well as alternative dispute resolution forums.
Business: PSRB’s broad business law practice has grown naturally out of the experience of the firms attorneys, and boasts a strong entrepreneurial tradition with many of the attorneys having founded new businesses. They regularly advise both public and privately held companies, as well as boards of directors and investors, on a variety of issues, including entity formation, corporate governance, mergers and acquisitions, contract and financing issues, intellectual property protection, and private securities offerings. Due in part to their extensive experience with insurance litigation, PSRB is uniquely positioned to assist businesses in establishing and updating risk management plans to ensure they are well-protected from known and unexpected perils. The attorneys also counsel companies on a broad range of employment-law matters, including discrimination claims, compliance with federal and state requirements, covenants not to compete, trade secret violations, wage claims, and personnel policies and procedures.
About Daniel P. Cory
Dan Cory has a results-oriented practice focused on assisting clients in managing risks within their companies and on environmentally impacted properties. This includes overseeing environmental investigations and remedial actions, transactions involving contaminated properties, litigation, enforcement defense and order negotiation, environmental compliance and counseling and Brownfield redevelopment.
He also regularly presents on environmental topics and serves as an adjunct faculty member at Notre Dame Law School, teaching a course on environmental law and development, which covers both the specifics of Brownfield redevelopment as well as broader policy considerations where environmental and development interests intersect.
About Thao T. Nguyen
Thao T. Nguyen focuses her practice on insurance coverage for policyholders and complex environmental and commercial litigation. She also handles transactions involving environmentally impacted real estate for both buyers and sellers. Thao represents companies, from international mega-corporations with billions in revenue to small, family-owned enterprises. She also works with municipalities, citizens’ groups and individuals on a wide variety of matters. Thao regularly presents on topics related to insurance coverage, from a general overview of the law for novices to more nuanced discussions for the advanced practitioner.
Thao is a past chair of the Indiana State Bar Association’s Environmental Law Section. She has served on the board of governors of the St. Joseph County Bar Association and is a member of the Robert A. Grant Inn of Court. She has been a grants panelist for the National Endowment for the Arts. Thao served on the Board of Trustees of the Indiana State Museum for 10 years and is currently an advisor to the Board.
About Joanne R. Sommers
Joanne Sommers is uniquely experienced in both litigation and transactional matters. Joanne’s broad foundation allows her litigation practice to inform her transactional practice, and vice versa, to help obtain the best, most cost-effective outcome for her clients. Joanne focuses her litigation practice on insurance coverage law. She represents policyholders in property and liability insurance coverage and insurance agent liability litigation. Joanne has deep and broad experience with a variety of insurance policies, including commercial general liability, umbrella liability, first-party property (including business interruption), directors and officers, errors and omissions, and pollution liability. Joanne also prosecutes and defends environmental cost recovery and other complex commercial claims, including breach of contract, construction defect, and real estate disputes.
Joanne focuses her non-litigation practice on transactional real estate and business matters for both buyers and sellers. Many of these deals concern environmentally contaminated properties. Joanne can assist clients with all aspects of asset and stock transactions, from contract drafting and negotiation, through due diligence, and to closing. Joanne uses her insurance and environmental training to help clients navigate any environmental concerns and maximize their likelihood of obtaining insurance coverage to pay for any required investigation and remediation.
