Ken Lederman

Ken is a contaminated property specialist who provides counseling and litigation support on environmental issues in property ownership, transactions (purchase, sale or financing) and redevelopment.

Ken helps purchasers, sellers, developers, businesses, and landowners with site acquisition, investigation and remediation strategies. A former Assistant Attorney General for the Washington State Department of Ecology, Ken has successfully facilitated the negotiation, remediation and redevelopment of hundreds of contaminated properties throughout the Northwest.

Ken takes the time to learn about each client’s goals and objectives to navigate the negotiation of contractual provisions and transactional indemnities regarding environmental liability, and to guide property owners with the best way to address contamination issues on existing properties – whether during redevelopment or not. Ken is also an experienced first-chair trial attorney, with a strong background in federal and state hazardous waste cost-recovery litigation and natural resource damage litigation.

Representative Transactions: Commercial & Residential Real Estate

• Assisting numerous national, regional and local developers on transactional strategies and indemnities, environmental cleanup work, and regulatory closure strategies for redevelopment projects throughout Washington and Oregon, as well as other jurisdictions throughout the United States.
• Representing multiple municipal entities and higher education facilities regarding environmental liabilities and transactional strategies.
• Representing multiple regional automobile dealerships regarding environmental regulatory and liability management.

Representative Transactions: Industrial Real Estate

• Representing multiple clients regarding sediment liabilities and natural resource damages associated with the Lower Duwamish Waterway Superfund Site, including service on the LDW Allocation Steering Committee.
• Representing regional and national industrial real estate developers on regulatory closure and redevelopment strategy for contaminated property in Tacoma tideflats, South of Downtown (SoDo), the Kent Industrial Corridor, and industrial areas along the I-5 corridor.
• Assisting local municipalities with the environmental cleanup and decommissioning of city infrastructure for purposes of rehabilitation and redevelopment of municipal facilities.
• Managed regulatory process for property being developed as sediment trans-loading facility, including supervision of a separate process to defend the client from liabilities associated with the Lower Duwamish Waterway Superfund site.

Representative Matters: Environmental Litigation

• Lead counsel for multiple cost-recovery claims regarding contaminated properties, including litigation that helped support the largest single-asset real estate transaction in Washington State history.
• Representing the Port of Seattle regarding cost recovery efforts for the investigation and remediation of Terminal 91.
• Representing multiple residential homeowners regarding cleanup and cost-recovery strategies of heating oil underground storage tank matters.

• Society of Industrial and Office Realtors, Member, 2018-Present
• Downtown Seattle Association (DSA), Board of Directors, 2014-present
• Executive Committee Member & General Counsel, 2017-present
• Leadership Tomorrow, Class of 2007
• National Association of Industrial Office Properties, Governance Committee Member, 2019-Present
• Community Development Round Table, Member, 2020-Present
• Washington Conservation Voters
• Board Chair, 2009-2010
• Board Chair, 2021-Current
• Executive Committee Member, 2008-present
• King County Chapter Board Chair, 2004-2005
• Washington Environmental Council
• Board Chair, 2021-Current
• Board Member, 2010-present
• Legal Committee, 1994-present
• Chambers USA (Washington) Leading Individual, Environment, 2017-present
• The Best Lawyers in America^© Environmental Law, 2018-present
• Washington Super Lawyers list, 2012-2020
• Rising Star, Washington Super Lawyers list, 2004-2010
• Puget Sound Business Journal’s “40 Under 40,” 2008

• Co-Chair, “Model Toxics Control Act CLE” - 2013, 2015, 2017, 2019
• Panel Member, "Alternative Dispute Resolution in the Environmental and Land Use Context," King County Bar Association Environmental and Land Use Law Section, May 11, 2018.
• Speaker, 2017 Real Estate/Land Use Briefing: Essential Industry Updates, November 9, 2017.
• Panel Member, "Cleaning Up Water, Air & Dirt: Litigation & Policy Updates," King County Bar Association Environmental & Land Use Section, June 18, 2017.
• Speaker, "Model Toxics Control Act," 60th Annual WSAMA Spring Conference, April 27, 2017.
• Speaker, 15th Annual Comprehensive Conference on Clean Water and Stormwater, April 7, 2015.

• J.D., Seattle University School of Law, cum laude
• Order of the Barristers – 4-time regional and national finalist in mock trial and appellate competition
• Class Historian and Commencement Speaker
• B.A., Rutgers University

• American Bar Association, Member
• Environmental & Land Use Law Section
• King County Bar Association, Member
• Environmental Law Section, Co-Founder and Inaugural Chair
• Washington State Bar Association, Member, 1996-Present
• Environmental & Land Use Law Section, Editorial Board
• Oregon State Bar, Member, 2010-Present