David B. Farer

In my career as an environmental lawyer, I have focused on bringing people together to achieve cleanups, revitalize sites, resolve disputes. I concentrate on finding solutions and common ground. Outside of the legal world, I've found that the same bottom line applies: In the end, it's always the people who matter.

Mr. Farer concentrates his practice on the impact of environmental laws on transactions and real property in New Jersey and around the nation. A nationally renowned environmental lawyer, he has been on the cutting edge of developments in the environmental sector since the 1980s. He is a Past President of the American College of Environmental Lawyers, where he is currently Co-Chair of the International Pro Bono Committee. Among his speeches in international settings were presentations at Oxford University's Smith School of Enterprise and the Environment, and at the XI International Convention on Environment and Development in Havana, Cuba. Most recently, he led a delegation of American environmental lawyers who participated in a February 2023 symposium in Havana with Cuban counterparts on the topic “USA-Cuba Key Environmental Issues: Lessons Learned – Lessons Shared.”

Mr. Farer has extensive experience related to the cleanup and redevelopment of contaminated properties including brownfields, environmental compliance and insurance issues, institutional and engineering controls, assessing and negotiating liability under federal and state Superfund laws, resolution of environmental issues in bankruptcy proceedings, litigation and dispute resolution arising from those issues, and the field of sustainable development and green building. He advises clients on environmental contractual protection techniques, due diligence, transaction-triggered environmental laws, funding options for brownfields redevelopment, state and federal cleanup liabilities, deed notices and use restrictions, and environmental disclosures. He also has substantial experience as special environmental counsel in bankruptcy proceedings, dealing with state and federal environmental authorities in the process of estimating and resolving environmental liabilities of bankrupt entities.

Mr. Farer has served as Special Master in environmental lawsuits in New Jersey, having been appointed to those positions by Judges of the Superior Court of New Jersey, Chancery Division. He regularly mediates environmental disputes, and is a qualified mediator under New Jersey court rules. He has also been selected by the United States District Court, District of New Jersey, to serve on the District’s Panel of Mediators, and continues to be appointed to successive terms on the panel.

Prior to joining the firm in January 2012 as chair of its newly established Environmental Department, Mr. Farer chaired the Environmental & Brownfields practice group at Farer Fersko, where he established that firm's environmental practice in 1984.

For over thirty years, Mr. Farer has written and lectured extensively on environmental issues in New Jersey and nationally. He developed and chaired two long-standing American Law Institute Continuing Legal Education (ALI CLE, formerly ALI-ABA) national courses of study: "The Impact of Environmental Law on Real Estate and Business Transactions: Brownfields and Beyond," presented since 1987, and "Environmental Insurance." Since the mid-1980s, he has developed and presented numerous seminars for the New Jersey Institute for Continuing Legal Education (NJICLE), including his longstanding series of lectures, programs and associated manuals on New Jersey’s Industrial Site Recovery Act (ISRA, formerly ECRA) and New Jersey’s Brownfield Law. His most recent NJICLE programs focused on New Jersey's Site Remediation Reform Act and its Licensed Site Remediation Professional (LSRP) program.

Having completed his service as President of the American College of Environmental Lawyers (ACOEL), Mr. Farer’s recent work as co-chair of the International Pro Bono Committee has focused on his role in leading ACOEL’s efforts in developing pro bono projects in Cuba. In addition to the Cuba projects mentioned above, in February 2021, during the pandemic, he participated in a webinar, co-sponsored by Columbia University, ACOEL, a Cuban NGO and the Environmental Defense Fund, on the topic of reinvigorating and expanding U.S./Cuba environmental cooperation.  

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