Jim Vines

WORK HISTORY

EDUCATION

SKILLS

ABOUT JIM VINES

I am a former US Attorney and US Supreme Court and US District Court Law Clerk. I focus on civil regulatory counseling and civil and criminal enforcement defense (e.g. false claims act, SEC, EPA, OSHA) as well as crisis management matters. At my previous law firm, I was the Deputy Chair of our Chambers-ranked Crisis Management practice. I have substantial experience with privileged investigations and legal and regulatory enforcement defense following catastrophic industrial accidents. I am very familiar with standardized EHS compliance/management systems in the energy, petro-chemical, heavy manufacturing, healthcare, automotive, and retail sectors. I assist clients in the U.S. and have international EHS regulatory and crisis management experience in more than 20 countries. Many of my matters involve U.S. and State OSHA agencies with a particular focus on OSHA Process Safety Management (PSM).My practice also includes:• Litigation and remediation of facilities, landfills and \"Superfund\"(CERCLA) sites, alleged liability for asbestos, PCBs, dioxins, mercury, various ground and surface water pollutants (VOCs and metals), and naturally occurring substances;• Health & Safety matters, including permissible exposure limits (PELs), process safety management (PSM), ergonomics, lockout-tagout, hot work, confined space, OSH Act General Duty Clause, fatality investigations;• Attorney-client privilege (including crime-fraud exception), attorney-work product, the “litigation” privilege, sealing of documents and in camera proceedings, federal and state FOIA/Open Records Acts, sovereign immunity protection for governmental information, DOJ privilege waiver requests in criminal investigations.