Clio Work for Environmental Law
Pick a task, copy the prompt, and run it on your matter in Clio Work.
Prompts
Legal Research
Confirm CERCLA liability standards and landowner defenses
Transactional
What are the liability standards for potentially responsible parties under CERCLA Section 107, including current and past owners and operators, arrangers, and transporters? Explain strict and joint and several liability, then walk through the elements of the innocent landowner and bona fide prospective purchaser defenses, such as all appropriate inquiries, reasonable steps, and no affiliation. Cite the controlling statutes and leading cases.
Check Phase I and Phase II site assessment requirements
Transactional
What ASTM standards govern Phase I and Phase II Environmental Site Assessments in a commercial real estate transaction? Explain the scope, timing and validity periods, who can perform them, typical deliverables, and when a Phase II is triggered. Cite the relevant standards and any local laws or guidance that affect the process.
Identify the Clean Air Act permits a facility needs
Transactional
For a manufacturing facility expansion, which Clean Air Act permits apply, including NSR or PSD for construction and Title V for major source operations? Explain the key thresholds and tests, such as major source and major modification, how emissions increases are calculated, and cite the controlling federal and state authorities.
Apply the wetlands standard after Sackett
Litigation
What is the current test for Clean Water Act jurisdiction over wetlands under the WOTUS rule after Sackett v. EPA? Summarize how circuit courts have applied it since, including how they interpret continuous surface connection and relatively permanent waters, and cite the key rule provisions and cases.
Check notice and standing rules for a Clean Water Act suit
Litigation
What standing requirements and 60-day pre-suit notice obligations under Clean Water Act Section 505 must be met to bring a citizen suit? Explain who must receive notice, what it must contain, the ongoing violation requirement, and how defective notice affects the case. Cite the controlling statute, regulations, and leading cases.
See how courts allocate CERCLA cleanup costs
Litigation
How do courts allocate CERCLA cleanup costs between private parties under Sections 107(a) and 113(f) after Cooper Industries and Atlantic Research? Explain when each claim is available, the equitable factors courts use to allocate costs, and how statutes of limitations differ. Cite the leading cases.
Document Analysis
Summarize each environmental permit
Transactional
From these environmental permits and compliance records, extract the permit type, issuing agency, permit number, facility, effective date, expiration date, key conditions, monitoring obligations, and reporting deadlines. Provide a table with one row per permit and a source reference for each item.
Review an environmental indemnity agreement
Transactional
Review this environmental indemnification agreement for the scope and triggers of remediation obligations, cost allocation terms like caps and deductibles, and survival of liability. Provide a table with the provision, issue, liability exposure, and recommended revision, and flag anything that needs attorney review.
Pull monitoring and reporting obligations from permits
Transactional
From these environmental permits, extract each permit condition, compliance deadline, monitoring and sampling obligation, recordkeeping requirement, and reporting obligation with its due date and recipient. Provide the results as a table with a source reference for each item.
Break down the claims in an environmental complaint
Litigation
From this environmental enforcement complaint or citizen suit, extract each statutory claim, the specific violations alleged, the affected environmental media such as air, water, or soil, and the relief requested. Provide the results as a table with paragraph references.
Summarize findings from enforcement hearing transcripts
Litigation
Review these regulatory enforcement hearing transcripts and identify the agency's findings, compliance determinations, and contested factual issues preserved for judicial review. Provide a table with the issue, each side's position, the finding, the page and line reference, and whether it's preserved for appeal.
Pull each party's costs and defenses in a CERCLA case
Litigation
From these CERCLA cost recovery documents, extract each party's response costs, basis for liability under Section 107(a) or 113(f), defenses raised, and settlement history. Provide the results as a table with source references and flag any missing cost documentation.
Skills
Skills save the way your firm does a task, so anyone at your firm gets the same result.
Get consistent, high-quality work from everyone at your firm, every time. A skill saves a task you repeat in your firm’s format and standards, so anyone on your team can run it. Use skills for document analyses, client letters, and strategy recommendations.
Review site assessment reports for data gaps
Reviews Phase I and Phase II reports for recognized environmental conditions and data gaps.
Create This Skill
Create a skill that reviews the Phase I and Phase II Environmental Site Assessments in this matter and returns a table of recognized environmental conditions, supporting data, data gaps, recommended further investigation, and the effect on liability defenses. It should flag anything that needs attorney review.
Build one table of permit obligations
Builds one table of permit conditions and deadlines across every environmental permit in a matter.
Create This Skill
Create a skill that extracts the permit type, issuing agency, effective and expiration dates, renewal lead times, monitoring and reporting obligations, and key conditions from every environmental permit in this matter into one table. It should then create a task for each upcoming deadline.
Check indemnity clauses against your firm's positions
Checks environmental indemnity and cost allocation clauses against the firm's standard positions.
Create This Skill
Create a review skill for environmental indemnity and cost allocation provisions in purchase and lease agreements. It should use my firm's preferred, acceptable, and unacceptable positions on remediation scope, cost caps, survival periods, and access rights, flag where each draft falls, and suggest fallback language.
Respond to an enforcement notice
Drafts a response to a notice of violation or agency enforcement letter.
Create This Skill
Create a skill that reads a notice of violation or agency enforcement letter and drafts a response that addresses each alleged violation, the facts and records in this matter that respond to it, available defenses, and response deadlines. It should use my firm's prior responses as the format.
Organize parties and costs for CERCLA recovery
Organizes responsible parties and response costs for cost recovery or contribution claims.
Create This Skill
Create a skill that reviews the CERCLA documents in this matter and builds a table of each potentially responsible party, its connection to the site, response costs incurred, basis for liability under Section 107(a) or 113(f), defenses raised, and settlement history.
Draft Templates
Draft documents from a prompt, or fill your firm’s own templates with details from the matter.
Get from a blank page to a first draft in minutes. Describe the document, and Clio Work drafts it from your matter’s facts and your jurisdiction’s law. Or turn your firm’s own documents into templates that fill in party names, dates, and terms from the matter.
Draft from a prompt
Draft a brief on the CERCLA innocent landowner defense
Litigation
Draft a brief arguing that the CERCLA innocent landowner defense bars liability for a client who bought property in 2021 after clean Phase I and Phase II assessments and was later named a potentially responsible party for contamination caused by prior owners. Address each element of the defense, including third-party causation, all appropriate inquiries, and due care.
Draft a permit compliance memo for a facility
Transactional
Draft a compliance memo on the permit conditions, monitoring obligations, and reporting deadlines for the facility in this matter under federal and my state's law. Use the permits in this matter, list each obligation with its deadline and source, and flag any condition that needs attorney review.
Draft a CERCLA cost recovery demand letter
Litigation
Draft a CERCLA Section 107(a) cost recovery demand letter to a potentially responsible party in this matter. Explain why the claim arises under Section 107(a) rather than Section 113(f) contribution, itemize the response costs, and set a clear response deadline.
Build your firm templates
Site Access Agreement
Sets the terms for consultants to enter a property for environmental work. Upload your firm's version, and Clio Work turns the property owner, site address, consultant, access dates, and insurance limits into fields it fills from each matter. Then review the suggested rule that adds the soil and groundwater sampling section only when Phase II work is planned.
Notice of Intent to Sue
Drafts the 60-day notice required before a citizen suit. Upload your firm's version, and Clio Work turns the violator, facility, violations, dates of violation, and recipients into fields it fills from each matter. Then review the suggested rule that switches the statutory citations based on whether the claim arises under the Clean Water Act or the Clean Air Act.
Environmental Indemnity Agreement
Fills the firm's indemnity agreement for property and business deals. Upload your firm's version, and Clio Work turns the indemnitor, indemnitee, property, known conditions, and survival period into fields it fills from each matter. Then review the suggested rule that adds the cost cap section only when the parties have agreed to a cap.
Visualizations
Visualizations make charts, calendars, and diagrams from your matter data.
Build the exact view you need, right when you need it. Describe it in plain language, and Clio Work builds an interactive tool from your matter data, such as a case chronology or a settlement calculator. Download it and share it with clients and colleagues.
Lay out a site contamination timeline
Lays out the history of site use, releases, and cleanup.
Create This Visualization
Using visualizations, create an interactive timeline of ownership changes, operations, known releases, investigations, and remediation milestones, with the source document noted for each event. Use the site assessments, permits, and agency records in this matter.
Chart sampling results against limits
Charts contaminant levels against regulatory limits over time.
Create This Visualization
Using visualizations, create an interactive chart of each contaminant's concentration over time by sampling location, with the applicable regulatory standard marked and any exceedances highlighted. Use the sampling and monitoring reports in this matter.
Track permit compliance on a dashboard
Shows the status of every permit and its upcoming obligations.
Create This Visualization
Using visualizations, create an interactive dashboard of each environmental permit with its expiration date, monitoring and reporting obligations, next deadline, and any reported exceedances. Use the environmental permits in this matter.
Show each party's share of cleanup costs
Shows each responsible party's share of cleanup costs.
Create This Visualization
Using visualizations, create an interactive chart of each potentially responsible party showing its connection to the site, its volume or nexus, and its proposed share of response costs. Let me click any party to see the supporting documents. Use the CERCLA documents in this matter.
Summarize an enforcement matter
Summarizes alleged violations, penalties, and status in one report.
Create This Visualization
Using visualizations, create an interactive report of each alleged violation with the regulation cited, proposed penalty, response status, and next deadline, sorted by the nearest deadline. Use the notices of violation and agency correspondence in this matter.
Model remediation scenarios with a client
Compares remediation costs and timelines across scenarios, live with the client, without the data leaving Clio.
Create This Visualization
Using visualizations, create an interactive comparison of the remediation scenarios in this matter. For each scenario, show the estimated cost, timeline, and key milestones, and let me adjust the assumptions to see how the totals change. Cite the source document for each estimate and flag any figure that is an assumption.