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Laurie Sands’ practice at Wolff & Samson focuses on environmental and complex commercial litigation. Her representation of both plaintiffs and defendants in complex Superfund and Spill Act cases and other state environmental litigation typically involves numerous parties and cutting edge issues. Laurie’s representations also include a number of natural resource damage cases at the state and federal level. In addition, she plays a significant role in the negotiation of settlements with the state, the federal government and other parties with respect to environmental claims.

Laurie also represents clients with respect to environmental regulatory matters, including matters involving wetlands and the water quality management planning process in New Jersey. Laurie combines her scientific background and experience, along with an understanding of technical issues, to benefit her clients in the defense and assertion of environmental claims and in assisting clients when navigating through the regulatory process.

Laurie assisted in formulating the ABA Resolution regarding President George W. Bush’s Ocean Policy Initiative and is a director of the Environmental Section of the New Jersey State Bar Association. She also worked for six years at the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection as a principal environmental specialist in the Division of Water Resources before practicing law. At the NJDEP, she supervised a program that addressed pollution problems in the coastal zone stemming from stormwater and sanitary sewer systems.

Laurie graduated from Rutgers University School of Law-Newark, where she participated in the Environmental Law Clinic and served as associate editor on the Rutgers Computer and Technology Journal. Prior to attending law school, she received a master’s degree in marine policy from the University of Rhode Island. As part of her graduate studies, Laurie wrote a thesis entitled “The SIIA: A Solution to the Problems Plaguing New Jersey’s Coastal Zone.” She holds a B.S. in biology from the Pennsylvania State University, where she spent one semester in an intensive, multidisciplinary course of study at the Marine Science Consortium at Wallops Island, Va.