Author: Shawn Collins

The City of Naperville has recently identified some 341 Naperville homes with lead water service lines. The City has yet to test 143 other homes that likewise may have lead service lines. Homes with lead service lines in Naperville would typically have been built before 1930-when the City outlawed l...

This week, the U.S. Senate votes on whether to approve President Trump’s choice, Scott Pruitt, to head the Environmental Protection Agency (“EPA”). Why should every Senator in the building vote “No”? Let me ask you this: Would it be OK with you if a lawyer for the world’s largest oil com...

I’ve written recently about President Trump’s determination to get the EPA out of the business of protecting the environment and the lives and health of the American people. (EPA Blog) (Gorsuch blog). Huge corporate polluters-including petroleum and mining companies-are tired of having to comply...

If you care about the environment’s impact on our life and health, should you care about whether Judge Neil Gorsuch, who President Trump has just nominated, is approved for a seat on the U.S. Supreme Court? Yes. You absolutely should. Here’s why: (1) Trump has a plan to dismantle environmental r...

New President Trump’s hostility for the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), and, really, for environmental protection in general, is well-documented. He thinks global warming/climate change is a “hoax”. He thinks that the EPA’s regulations providing clean water for us to drink and clean a...

(1) Insurance adjusters are paid employees of the insurance company. They are skilled at negotiation and are advised by experienced insurance company lawyers who know the law. Together, they know all the strategies to keep you from hiring a lawyer and to get you to settle your claim quickly for as l...

“You know a man by the company he keeps.” That’s what the Ancient Greek storyteller, Aesop, said a long time ago. The expression has survived until today because it makes sense: we all know that there is a lot to be learned about someone by seeing the friends he/she chooses. If Aesop was right...

For the last 17 years, I and a team of lawyers have been representing families threatened by TCE contamination in their water supply, in the groundwater underneath their homes, and in the air inside their homes (called “vapor intrusion”). Recent reports in the media, unfortunately, describe how ...

Illinois legislators have an opportunity this fall to do something important and help to regain some of the public’s trust in government. They can pass a bill to test for lead in the drinking water at Illinois’ schools. (Yes, believe it or not, no such testing is currently required….as if we n...

This is about how to send the right message to a company that is alleged to have willfully endangered the health of workers. The company is Fraser Shipyard of Superior, Wisconsin. The federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) has accused Fraser of exposing 190 welders and ship fab...