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Jane E. Fedder
Of Counsel
(she, her, hers)
Overview
Jane Fedder is a proven and trusted advocate, advisor, strategist, trial, and appellate attorney specializing in resolving complex environmental and insurance recovery disputes on behalf of a broad array of clients including Fortune 50 manufacturing companies, municipalities, public utilities, and a multi-national mining conglomerate, as well as electrical cooperatives and family-owned businesses.
Jane has experience representing clients facing enforcement threats and legal actions under most of the major federal environmental statutes, many state environmental regulatory schemes, and common law. She has won numerous judgments – and attorney fee awards – against insurance companies who refused to defend and/or indemnify clients in environmental claims. Jane is also knowledgeable in the emerging areas of forever chemicals (PFAs / PFOs), climate change, environmental justice, and more.
Jane is a member of Spencer Fane’s Environmental and Energy and Litigation Dispute Resolution practice groups and serves on the firm’s Professional Responsibility Committee. She also volunteers as an Editor for the American Bar Association’s Environmental and Energy Litigation Committee.
Jane has an extensive background in legal ethics from her service as a long-standing volunteer attorney for the Missouri Office of Chief Disciplinary Counsel, including serving as a Disciplinary Hearing Officer and Disciplinary Committee member. Jane also served for several years as the Risk Management Director at a prior firm. She is a frequent author, panelist, and public speaker on environmental, professionalism, and women’s advocacy topics.
Credentials
Education
- Washington University School of Law, 1988 (J.D.)
- University of Missouri - St. Louis, 1984 (B.A.), magna cum laude
Court Admissions
- U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit, 2013
- U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of North Carolina, 2009
- U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit, 1995
- U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit, 1993
- U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Illinois, 1991
- U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Missouri, 1990
- Deposed numerous expert witnesses, successfully briefed, and argued extensive pre-trial motions that significantly limited the size and number of claims in a mass tort case where plaintiffs alleged our client’s hauling operations created a nuisance for those living along the hauling route in western Missouri.
- Provided strategic counseling and collaborated on briefing pre-trial motions that led to denial of putative class action certification of claims alleging property damages in a lawsuit due to air emissions from a large fire and explosion at a manufacturing plant in southern Illinois.
- Collaborated on strategy, discovery, and briefing pre-trial motions in a 300-plus plaintiff action alleging property damage and emotional distress associated with mercury released from a manufacturing plant in Alabama.
- Collaborated on strategy, discovery, and briefing pre-trial motions in a benzene exposure matter and related insurance recovery claims linked to a plume of gasoline under a residential neighborhood in southern Illinois.
- Pursued contribution, breach of contract, and common law claims in a multi-party consolidated lawsuit brought in Nebraska federal court relating to the environmental response and remediation of a defunct ethanol plant. In the same matter, Jane serves as a strategic advisor in collaborative efforts to develop a long-term remedy at the plant site under the state’s voluntary compliance program.
- Defended a Fortune 50 client against a CERCLA contribution lawsuit involving allegations of legacy and successor liabilities for the clean-up of a former municipal landfill in Dayton, Ohio.
- Defended a UK-based company against claims of successor liability stemming from the remediation of a legacy Superfund site adjacent to the Gary, Indiana airport.
- Recently obtained dismissal of a New Jersey Spill Act lawsuit on jurisdictional grounds followed by negotiating a low-dollar settlement that ended a decades long successor liability dispute.
- Won a CERCLA contribution judgment following a bench trial in the Western District of Virginia. The adjacent property owner wrongly denied its liability for response costs to address releases and threats of releases of hazardous substances from legacy lead and zinc mine-tailing disposals on the client’s property. Jane’s advocacy also ended the state’s decades-long erroneous assertion of regulatory authority under the Clean Water Act over her client.
- On appeal to the Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals, Jane won the right for non-settling potentially responsible parties (PRPs) to intervene to challenge entry of consent decree between the U.S. government and settling PRPs concerning the cleanup of a PCB-contaminated former transformer repair and sales facility in Cape Girardeau, Missouri. This was the first federal appellate decision to recognize a right of PRPs to intervene.
- Obtained a temporary restraining order in Illinois Circuit Court prohibiting an Alabama attorney from soliciting personal injury clients in southern Illinois in violation of the prohibition against the unauthorized practice of law and forcing removal of his “Toxic Waste Lawsuit” billboard advertisement.
- Arthritis Foundation of Greater St. Louis, Leadership Board, 2016-2018
- Court Appointed Special Advocates (CASA) of St. Louis County Inc., Board of Directors, 2006-2007
- Missouri Campaign for Change Voter Protection Program
- Missouri Democratic Party, Voter Protection Volunteer
- University of Missouri-St. Louis, Pre-Law Advisory Council
- Best Lawyers in America, 2024
- Chambers USA, Environmental Law
- Martindale-Hubbell, AV Preeminent
- Who’s Who in American Law
- American Bar Association
- Litigation Committee
- The Woman Advocate Committee
- Insurance Coverage Litigation
- Environmental & Energy Litigation
- Environmental Energy & Resources Law Committee
- Litigation Committee
- The Bar Association of Metropolitan St. Louis
- “Exxon Ruling Makes Traceability Key In Clean Air Citizen Suits,” Law360, August 21, 2020
- “Superfund Report: EPA Guide to Speed Superfund Remedial Design Receives Mixed Reaction,” Bloomberg, July 30, 2018
- “Deposition Bullies: Tips for Spotting Them and Stopping Them,” American Bar Association webinar, August 7, 2018
- “How Do I Persist?” American Bar Association, March 14, 2018
- “Court Opens Door To New U.S. CERCLA Liability But Allocations May Be Key,” Inside EPA, July 21, 2017
- “Leveraging Latest CERCLA Decisions and Navigating New Complexities,” Strafford Live Webinar, April 11, 2017
- “Judges’ Plenary: Learn from our Mistakes: Do’s and Don’ts of Trial Practice from Top Women Litigators,” Women of the Section of Litigation Conference, November 13, 2015
- “Public Policy & Environmental | Environmental Risks For Business,” St. Louis; Business Law Institute CLE, June 2015
- “Arranger Liability Still Confusing Courts Four Years After Supreme Court Decision,” Bloomberg BNA, September 24, 2013
- “Eye on Ethics: Keeping Confidences of Non-Clients, Even Those With Whom You Haven’t Spoken,” St. Louis Lawyer, Bar Association of Metropolitan St. Louis, October 2007
- “Sales of Used Transformers, Sold for Resale to Missouri Electric Works, Declared to Be Sales of Useful Products, Not Arrangements for the Disposal of PCBs,” Currents, Electrical Apparatus Service Association Newsletter, June 2007
- “Eye on Ethics: Femifascists and Dandelions: The Ethical Implications of Judicial Free Speech,” St. Louis Lawyer; Bar Association of Metropolitan St. Louis, January 2007
- “Every Day Ethical Considerations, Best Practice Series – Ethics in Your Practice,” Washington University School of Law ADR Program, USA&M Midwest, Inc., September 15, 2006
- “The Ethics of Pro Bono,” The St. Louis Bar Journal; The Missouri Bar, Fall 2005
- “Pro Bono Obligations, Conflicts and Rewards,” Bar Association of Metropolitan St. Louis’ 19th Annual What’s New in Legal Ethics Seminar, June 9, 2005
- “Eye on Ethics: Should it Stay or Should It Go? – Missouri’s New Client File Retention / Destruction Rule,” St. Louis Lawyer; Bar Association of Metropolitan St. Louis, February 2005
- “Eye on Ethics: 1-800-PIT-BULL False and Misleading or Just Tacky?” St. Louis Lawyer; Bar Association of Metropolitan St. Louis, August 2004
- “Eye on Ethics: Ethics of Hidden Information in Electronic Documents,” St. Louis Lawyer; Bar Association of Metropolitan St. Louis, April 2004
- “Confidentiality of Organizational Clients: Are the Flood Gates Open? Not Yet – But Watch Out!” St. Louis Lawyer; Bar Association of Metropolitan St. Louis, December 2003