Clay Garside is a partner at Walter Wiygul & Garside. He runs the firm’s New Orleans office and litigates an active docket of property damage, personal injury, maritime, environmental, and public law cases. During the past few years, his practice has centered on representing clients in the massive BP/Deepwater Horizon case. He also sits as a board member of the Environmental Section of the Louisiana State Bar Association. Mr. Garside graduated magna cum laude from Tulane Law School in 2005.

Elise M. Henry is an associate in Jones Walker LLP’s Litigation Practice Group, where she focuses on environmental regulatory compliance and litigation. Ms. Henry assist clients in a variety of industries, including chemical and manufacturing, with environmental and related legal challenges. She has experience working with companies and governmental agencies to find practical solutions to enforcement and compliance issues.

Beaux Jones is general counsel at the Water Institute of the Gulf. He has extensive experience in the government, non-profit, and private sectors, and an extensive knowledge of coastal and environmental law. Prior to joining the Institute, Mr. Jones served as the environmental section chief for the Louisiana Department of Justice, where he represented the State of Louisiana and its agencies in a wide variety of matters ranging from environmental and coastal law to criminal and appellate law. He most recently worked as an environmental and coastal lawyer for the law firm Baldwin Haspel Burke & Mayer in New Orleans. He has worked on several high-profile cases related to the Gulf Coast and Louisiana, including working on the BP spill litigation team with the Louisiana Attorney General. Mr. Jones currently serves as vice chair of the Louisiana State Bar Association-Environmental Section and as vice chair for the Coalition to Restore Coastal Louisiana.

Allan Kanner of Kanner & Whiteley, L.L.C. has a national environmental and natural resource damage practice. He represented New Jersey in its largest natural resource damages case, which led to the state’s largest settlement for natural resource damages. In addition, Mr. Kanner was lead counsel for Louisiana in the Deepwater Horizon oil spill litigation, in which Louisiana received approximately $8 billion in natural resource damages and economic losses. He represents New Jersey in several natural resource damages cases, New Mexico in a case against the United States Air Force related to PFAS contamination at bases in the state, Vermont for PFAS contamination generally throughout the state, and the Conservation Law Foundation in a series of climate change cases against polluters in New England. Many of his cases have become leading precedents or have led to legislative and regulatory changes to better protect the public and the environment.

Meghan E. Smith is the co-leader of Jones Walker LLP’s Environmental Litigation Practice Group and a member of the Energy, Environmental & Natural Resources and Construction Industry Teams. She focuses her practice on environmental/toxic tort, construction and energy litigation and arbitration, as well as regulatory compliance. In her environmental practice, Ms. Smith has extensive experience representing oil and gas, chemical, and manufacturing companies in regulatory compliance matters (both onshore and offshore), investigations, and litigation involving salt domes, mineral rights, drinking water, industrial accidents, environmental contamination claims, coastal erosion claims, and latent exposure claims.

Spencer D. Varnado, over 14 years of professional experience in the areas of environmental compliance, permitting, and biological investigations. His areas of expertise include environmental and biological assessments, surveys and mapping; jurisdictional wetland delineations and determinations; regulatory permitting and compliance monitoring with various state and federal agencies; wetland mitigation plan development and implementation; wetland and wildlife management plans; and wetland value assessments. Mr. Varnado’s typical projects include linear pipeline and electrical transmission construction and maintenance, residential and commercial developments, sand and gravel mining, petrochemical facility compliance, due diligence, and habitat restoration projects.

Andrew C. Wilson is a partner at Milling Benson Woodward LLP. He serves as both lead trial counsel and appellate counsel in all stages of federal and state civil litigation as well as in administrative proceedings before state and federal agencies. His experience includes litigation related to personal injuries, major disasters, ship collisions, insurance coverage and, oilfield and environmental remediation matters. His most significant achievement to date involves the outright dismissal of a class action and several other related suits seeking billions of dollars in alleged damages to oyster leases in Louisiana resulting from coastal restoration projects. Mr. Wilson has also served as a consultant to the State on coastal restoration issues and is an External Advisory Board member for the LSU Coastal Sustainability Studio.