Kalman Law, P.C. is a boutique environmental law firm located in Linwood, New Jersey. The firm specializes in environmental litigation, representing private clients in complex cases, regulatory compliance proceedings, contaminated site remediation matters, environmental insurance coverage disputes, and transactional environmental due diligence. Its practice is concentrated in the state and federal courts of New Jersey, focusing exclusively on environmental issues.
The Foundation of the Practice
Environmental law is, at its core, applied science. The statutes and case law provide the framework; the science provides the facts from which everything else follows. A contamination plume migrates according to the laws of hydrogeology, not the preferences of the parties. A remediation cost is reasonable or unreasonable based on what the technical data shows, not on what the invoices say. A coverage dispute under an occurrence-based policy turns, in substantial part, on when contamination actually began, a question that demands technical analysis, not legal argument alone.
It is precisely because environmental law is applied science that the firm’s founding premise matters. Matthew Kalman is among a small number of environmental practitioners in New Jersey who spent a full professional career in the environmental sciences before entering the legal field. For more than eleven years, he worked as a hydrogeologist, ultimately becoming the founder and Principal Hydrogeologist of his own consulting firm, handling technically demanding remediation projects. That career was not a prelude to a legal practice; it is the scientific infrastructure on which every legal argument this firm makes is built.
The Scope of the Practice
Kalman Law, P.C. handles the full spectrum of environmental law matters for private clients.
Litigation. The firm prosecutes and defends environmental litigation claims in the Superior Court of New Jersey and the United States District Court for the District of New Jersey, including Spill Act cost-recovery and contribution actions, CERCLA proceedings, government-initiated enforcement defense, and natural resource damage claims.
Regulatory Compliance. The firm counsels clients on their obligations under New Jersey’s Industrial Site Recovery Act and Site Remediation Reform Act, the two statutes that most directly govern contaminated property transactions and remediation programs in New Jersey, as well as under federal programs including CERCLA, RCRA, the Clean Water Act, TSCA, and EPCRA.
Insurance Coverage. The firm represents policyholders in environmental coverage disputes, from initial claim submission through contested litigation, including duty-to-defend proceedings and multi-insurer, multi-period allocation under the framework established in Owens-Illinois, Inc. v. United Insurance Co.
Site Remediation. The firm guides clients through every phase of the site remediation process, from initial investigation design and agency negotiation through remedial action workplan approval, LSRP oversight, and final remediation document issuance.
Transactions. The firm advises purchasers, sellers, lenders, and corporate parties on the environmental dimensions of real property and business entity transactions, including ISRA compliance, Phase I and Phase II due diligence evaluation, and the drafting and negotiation of environmental provisions in transactional documents.
The Client Experience
Every client of Kalman Law, P.C. works directly and exclusively with Matthew Kalman. The firm is a boutique practice deliberately, not incidentally. When complexity demands the full integration of scientific knowledge and legal judgment, and in the matters this firm handles it almost always does, the only person who can provide that integration is the individual who possesses both. That person is available to every client of this firm, on every matter, from beginning to end.