Snell & Wilmer is pleased to announce the addition of Rick McNeil as a partner in the firm’s commercial litigation group in Orange County. He joins Snell & Wilmer from the law firm of Jeffer Mangels Butler & Mitchell. McNeil also formerly chaired the environmental practice at Irell & Manella.
McNeil’s practice is focused in environmental and land use litigation and counseling. He has more than 25 years of experience representing manufacturers, power plants, chemical companies, refineries, real estate developers and other industrial and commercial businesses against environmental claims. McNeil has litigated environmental cost recovery, the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA), the Clean Air Act, the Clean Water Act and state common law actions, as well as multi-party groundwater contamination cases, toxic tort cases, environmental insurance cases and environmental criminal prosecutions.
“We are excited to have Rick join our team in Orange County,” said Bill O’Hare, Administrative Partner of Snell & Wilmer’s Orange County office. “Rick is well known as a premier environmental and land use lawyer. Rick will complement Snell & Wilmer’s already well-established real estate and environmental practice in California and throughout the West.”
According to McNeil, “I joined Snell & Wilmer to enhance my ability to help my clients meet their business goals. The firm’s full service capabilities paired with a focus in the Western region are an attractive service offering for the clients I counsel.”
McNeil earned his Bachelors of Arts degree from Yale University and his law degree from Boalt Hall School of Law at the University of California, Berkeley, where he was a member of the California Law Review. He was named one of Los Angeles Daily Journal’s “Top 20 Under 40,” and has been included on the Los Angeles Lawyer’s Southern California “Super Lawyers” list six times. McNeil is a member of the American Law Institute and the Orange County Bar Association’s Environmental Law Section. He is a former member of the Executive Committee of the Environmental Law Section of the State Bar of California.
