Environment law is a growth area, especially given the increasing global awareness of issues such as climate change and the need for alternative sources of energy. It seeks to protect both humans and the physical environment against pollution and the impact of human activity on the natural world.

Given this broad aim, environment lawyers will find themselves involved in a wide range of matters, as diverse as health and safety, risk management, contaminated land, waste, renewable energy, environmental finance, commercial and property transactions, nuclear law and litigation. Clients may include individuals, community groups, organisations, local authorities and the government.

Ian Salter is a partner in one of the largest environment departments in the country, at national firm Burges Salmon. He remembers encountering a fork in the road after graduating from the University of Bristol in 1989, when environmental law was not really on the agenda of most major law firms. All his friends went to work in the City but, at the suggestion of a professor, Ian decided to stay in Bristol and work for Burges Salmon. Ian says: “I’d like to say I planned my career from A to Z perfectly, but environment law was just a concept when I was at university. While it has arguably been around for over 300 years, it’s generally been called different things – usually a nuisance. The main development in environmental legislation came with the Environmental Protection Act in 1990 which post-dated my degree.” Now, of course, “the environment isn’t out of the news – it’s extremely busy”.

It was the end of the Eighties boom and Ian remembers how “firms in the City were just getting into recruitment in a big way and offering lucrative packages. I thought long and hard about what I wanted, which was not to make sacrifices on the quality of work I did. But I wanted to stay in Bristol. My university tutor told me Burges Salmon was the obvious choice”.

So, Ian stayed in Bristol and qualified in planning. He notes: “I was lucky to hit a firm that survived the early Nineties recession reasonably unaffected. I stayed in planning for the next five years. We did any environmental work that came in, having set up an environmental law unit around the time I qualified. No one specialised full time in it then. A lot of the London firms went for it as the next big thing but it didn’t really happen as a practice area to start with. There wasn’t the work they were anticipating and as a result the London firms may have become a little disenchanted with it.” Indeed, by 1995 many of them reduced their investment in the area. It was about that time that Burges Salmon set up an environment department with full-time specialists and since then the team has grown to 14 lawyers, separate from the successful planning team at the firm.

Ian’s group forms a dedicated environment department recognised nationwide for advising major clients, both public and private sector. “What’s happened is that from humble beginnings we now tend to specialise quite carefully,” says Ian. Specialisation was key in developing the department so that individuals could get to grips with the details of certain areas. With Ian’s central specialisation being nuclear, his colleagues work on areas from renewable energy to emissions trading.

Ian explains how it works: “My own caseload is dominated by three sectors: nuclear, waste and transport. The biggest of those for me is nuclear. There are three things happening: first is the potential for new nuclear power stations, second is cleaning up our old nuclear industry – a £70 billion industry – and third is nuclear waste. It’s an environmental job because it’s about cleaning up something which exists at the moment. It’s a big moral and ethical issue about how you clean up our legacy for future generations, where do you put the waste, who pays for it and what are the impacts.”

With all that in mind, it’s the variety of his work that Ian enjoys the most: “The skills you employ go across the whole range. You can do commercial drafting, project work, a regulatory issue that might involve a criminal prosecution, a corporate finance deal, civil litigation and tax advice (for instance there is a tax relief on cleaning contaminated land), then you might be doing advocacy at a public inquiry. You need to develop this incredibly diverse range of skills emanating from one sector.”

Added to that is the unprecedented nature of his work. Ian says: “If you pick up a textbook on environmental law, most of the subjects on which we advise won’t be in there. You can’t buy a textbook on carbon law or areas like waste electronics. It’s right at the cutting edge.”

Such a dynamic practice area requires specific skills. The central one is flexibility, says Ian: “You can have a number of things on the go involving different legal skills and areas. You have to be able to manage that, which can be quite difficult. You have to be able, even with all the electronic tools we’ve got, to keep on top of such a rapidly evolving subject.”

Even though the environment is on everyone’s lips, Ian recommends that moral implications have to be separated from professionalism. “While I personally do have environmental views,” he says “I think that when you’re acting for clients, you’ve got to act in their best interests. Sometimes we’re defending clients charged with environment crimes, but usually there’s a positive role to play there. If they’re found guilty, you’ll be helping them learn the lessons. It goes without saying that none of them usually want a repeat experience."

For those just about to start out on a legal career, Ian advises keeping your options open for as long as possible. He says: “Until you get into the firm and do your work it’s too early to say, so don’t make any judgements about what you want to do until you’ve tried it to see if you enjoy it. Keep an open mind about where you want to be on qualification. Try your best in every seat.”

And when it comes to environmental law, there are now three roads. “If you want to do standalone, regulatory environmental work,” says Ian, “then a firm like Burges Salmon would, in my view, be better than a City M&A firm where the vast amount of environmental work will be on corporate transaction support. The third option of course is if you want to work for a green NGO, then you want to be working for a different firm again.”

As for the future Ian is optimistic for the legal profession's role in the environment sector. The times are a-changing and, as Ian says: “I think there are a lot of exciting developments soon to happen.”