Wes Stevenson is a litigation associate with Manko, Gold, Katcher & Fox, LLP.  Wes regularly represents clients in environmental litigation and assists with regulatory compliance and enforcement issues across environmental media, with a particular focus on air.  Wes’s complex litigation experience includes cost recovery and contribution actions under CERCLA, air permitting proceedings, and regulatory litigation.  Wes also works closely with clients managing environmental crises and helps them to assess and mitigate associated litigation risks.

Wes graduated magna cum laude from Temple University Beasley School of Law.  During law school, Wes served as a Staff Editor of the Temple Law Review and earned distinguished class performance notations in several courses, including legal writing, administrative law, criminal law, torts, contracts, conflicts of law, evidence, civil procedure, and environmental law.  Wes also led successful efforts to end the City of Philadelphia’s practice of charging parents for incarcerating their own children.  This effort drew national news coverage, the 2017 Clinical Legal Education Association National Award for Excellence in a Public Interest Project, and a citation from the Philadelphia City Council. 

Wes served as a law clerk to the Honorable Cathy Bissoon of the United States District Court for the Western District of Pennsylvania from 2018 to 2020.  Prior to college, Wes worked for two years as an AmeriCorps corps member and team leader with City Year, Inc., primarily supporting literacy efforts in elementary schools in Chicago, IL and Washington, DC.

Wes was a summer associate with the firm in 2015 and returns to Manko after practicing environmental law at a large Philadelphia firm.  Outside the office, Wes enjoys poetry, great food, and exploring the outdoors on foot.

• Representation of a group of Fortune 500 companies in multiple complex CERCLA actions and in supporting entry of a related consent decree with the United States, all of which arise out of cost allocation issues for remediation for the Lower Passaic River.
• Defense of an energy company in administrative appeals related to Pennsylvania facilities, including an appeal of an installation air permit for proposed natural gas facility in Southwestern Pennsylvania and defense of a Title V permit for natural gas combined-cycle energy generation facility in Northeastern Pennsylvania.
• Advised national building products company is connection with multi-year negotiation with Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection over air permit application and alleged compliance issues, eventually initiating litigation in order to obtain successful resolution on alleged technical deficiencies.
• Served as common counsel for a group of former customers of a now-defunct waste transfer and disposal company responsible for remediation of the site under supervision of the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection; served as remediation counsel for group of entities in connection with investigation and remediation of a Superfund site in Trainer, PA.
• Represented a global flavor and fragrance manufacturer in mitigating litigation risks and crafting wholistic response in connection with environmental issues arising from unexpected crisis events at U.S.-based facilities.
• Advocate for intervenor power generation company in litigation over Pennsylvania’s Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative regulation and related rulemaking process.
• Counseled multiple clients with respect to purchase, investment, and/or redevelopment in property with historic environmental contamination, including successful negotiation of settlement agreement on behalf of a public housing authority client with prior gas station operator for increased remediation costs.