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

This sweeping objective means that environment lawyers are 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 can include individuals, community groups, organisations, local authorities and the government.

Simon Tilling is a two-year qualified solicitor in the environment team at Burges Salmon. He studied a unique degree at the University of Bristol. "I think it is the only qualifying law degree in the country that's a BSc," he says. The four-year chemistry and law degree covers both disciplines equally and allowed Simon to develop his interest in science, while also leaving the door open wide enough to other professions. "I had a vague feeling that I didn't want a life stuck in a lab; I wanted to meet people. I found the idea of a chemistry and law degree intriguing, so I decided to do it." Halfway through the degree, his careers adviser told Simon and his peers that they needed to start applying for training contracts. "I obligingly signed up for various vacation schemes and thought I'd give it a go. I had a good feeling that law was right for me."

Having first done a vacation scheme at Burges Salmon, Simon had a training contract interview with the firm and discovered that he'd been successful in the final year of his degree. Simon went on to study the LPC at the Bristol Institute of Legal Practice before walking into his training contract in the city's largest law firm. It wasn't until his third seat (of a six-seat training contract) that Simon had his first taste of environment work, though. "I sat with our head of environmental litigation," he remembers. "Very few firms have an environment litigation capability so it was quite different - there was a lot of going to court on various environment issues. I wanted to come back." And indeed he did just that - for his final two seats. "By the time I qualified, I'd spent a year of my training contract in environment."

Simon knows exactly what it is about environment law that sets his pulse racing. "It's hugely varied - and I like variety!" he enthuses. "I've been working on transactional work, advising on corporate deals from an environment perspective; nuclear deals; general advice, such as for an industrial client which is selling a partly contaminated site; and regulatory advice, the scope of which is large because the environment is heavily regulated. The work ranges from having a permit for a big industrial site - we advise on how to get the permit and be compliant with it - to transportation of waste, for example."

His client base is as broad as his practice. "We act for a household-name car manufacturer," he elaborates. "Other key clients are large multinationals in the petrochemicals sector. We're very big in nuclear, so we have clients across the nuclear industry. We've got chemical industries, a carbon black manufacturer - big industry, big manufacturers. We're quite big in transport as well, especially rail. We also have large landowner clients such as the National Trust and the Crown Estate. If you've got a lot of land, you've got a lot of environmental issues. The other group is agriculture - Burges Salmon has a very good agriculture practice, so clients who've come to us historically for farming advice now need environment advice too."

Finally, there's the criminal side to his practice. Simon estimates that around 70% to 80% of his work in contentious; a hefty chunk of that is criminal defence work. "Our criminal work is mainly defence because the Environment Agency does its own prosecutions. It's good because it's one of the few areas where you can be at a commercial firm like Burges Salmon but still go to the magistrates' court and do your own advocacy. It does mean that last week I was looking around an industrial site with a client, then later in the day I was in the magistrates' court alongside sandwich stealers and bar-room brawlers. Then later in the same week I was in the Royal Courts of Justice on a big multimillion-pound claim. So that's what I mean when I say the work is varied!"

One of the highlights of Simon's career was a case he worked on as a trainee. He explains: "We acted for a large utility company that had leased a site to a waste operator who was allowed to bring in mixed materials from building sites. He had a licence from the Environment Agency which allowed him to bring in a certain amount, pile it up and process it so that the clean concrete and rubble could be crushed and sent off for building projects. But what he did was take skip-loads of any old junk - including materials such as asbestos - entirely in breach of his licence. The Environment Agency prosecuted successfully but he only received a £17,000 fine, whereas our client was left with the clean-up costs, which ran into the millions. Because we've got a specialist environment litigation team, we're in a position to advise on the nuances within environmental legislation. There is an obscure sub-section in the Environmental Protection Act 1990 which allows individuals and companies to recover costs through the civil courts for unlawful deposits of waste. The case settled out of court on the first day of trial - he caved in and we recovered an award in the hundreds of thousands."

Simon adds: "It was both an example of the specialist nature of environment litigation and a very satisfying result. I was very proud to be part of it. We've done cases like that since, but that was when I realised it was what I wanted to do. It was exciting and new - the law hadn't been tested in court before. The Environment Agency was very pleased with our result and the case was reported in the legal press and throughout the waste industry. It was rewarding to take a rogue to the cleaners!"

Because environment law changes so frequently, Simon advises that if you have an interest, you should do all you can to keep up. "Staying up to date is very useful - if you're coming to interview and you say you've got an interest in environmental law, expect to be quizzed. You should have an interest in technology too - photovoltaic cells and wind power and things like that. Work experience in any law firm is good, but it's useful to go somewhere with environmental capabilities so you can see what it's like. It's not just law; it's law, politics and technology. You've got to be able to show that level of interest at interview - not just in black-letter law, but also in what's happening in the industry and where the politics are taking us."