Early this year Robert J. Alessi of DLA Piper entered a minefield of fossil fuel politics, high-stakes appellate litigation, and career upheaval tied to the collapse of Dewey & LeBoeuf. Last week, he not only emerged intact, but helped cement a crucial win for Inergy and other companies hoping to exploit Marcellus Shale gas reserves in the face of heavy environmental opposition.
In February, Inergy turned to Alessi, who was then a partner in Dewey’s Manhattan and Albany offices, to fight an emergency stay that environmentalists had won in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit. The court had agreed to halt construction on an Inergy subsidiary’s planned 39-mile MARC I natural gas pipeline through Bradford, Sullivan and Lycoming counties in northeast Pennsylvania, throwing the project and possibly other Marcellus development projects into question. At the same time Dewey, where Alessi served as the global co-chair of the environmental litigation group, was nearing the precipice.
