Draft:Lawrence P. Schnapf

Lawrence P. Schnapf is an American environmental transactional attorney based in New York City and New Jersey, with over 40 years of environmental law experience, and is the principal of Schnapf LLC. He has been an adjunct professor at New York Law School since 1996, where he teaches Environmental Law and Policy and a two-day seminar on Brownfield Law and Practice, and has also taught Real Estate Transactions and Finance.

Early life and education

Schnapf was born and raised in the Tremont section of the Bronx, where he attended P.S. 26. He spent much of his childhood at Crotona Park, where he developed an early interest in geology by climbing rock outcrops.

When he was ten, his family moved to the Strathmore development in Matawan, New Jersey, where his interest in environmental issues grew out of exploring nearby Mohingson Creek, observing pollution discharging from stormwater pipes, visiting the local sewage treatment plant that discharged into the creek, and watching surrounding farmland and woods where he played turn into residential subdivisions. In high school he excelled in earth science and worked on a student film about pollution.

While attending Rutgers University, Schnapf developed an interest in journalism and decided to focus his writing on complex environmental and science issues. He pursued a double major, graduating with a Bachelor of Arts in both Geology and English. He worked as a reporter for the Rutgers Daily Targum, where in 1973 he wrote a multi-part series on the assassination of President Kennedy.

After college, he pursued a career as a science and environmental journalist. Schnapf authored articles for the Bayshore Independent, focusing on local environmental infrastructure, including the regional sewer plant, municipal hazardous waste issues, and solar energy. He also published freelance articles in New Jersey Monthly and Central Jersey Monthly, as well as in You, a Sunday magazine of The Los Angeles Times, on the fun of fossil hunting, batting and tennis cages. He wrote about New Jersey fossil and artifact hunters for The New York Times in 1980, and in 1987 published an analysis of New Jersey's landmark Environmental Cleanup Responsibility Act (ECRA), also in The New York Times.

Concluding he could have a greater impact as an environmental lawyer, Schnapf enrolled in the evening division of New York Law School, where he served on the law review and as co-president of the Environmental Law Society while continuing to write about environmental issues, and received two Environmental Law Institute scholarships.

Legal practice and academic career

After graduating from NYLS in 1984, Schnapf joined the corporate law department of The Hertz Corporation as a real estate attorney. Leveraging his academic background in geology, he expanded his responsibilities to include managing emerging environmental liabilities for the company. He later joined the CIT Business Group during a period when commercial lender liability issues became a growing concern to financial institutions. At CIT, Schnapf helped develop one of the first comprehensive environmental due diligence policies for the financial industry.

Schnapf then entered private practice to focus exclusively on environmental issues, establishing a practice centered on real estate and corporate transactions, lender liability, and state transaction-based environmental laws. He authored one of the first transaction-based environmental law treatises structured for non-environmental practitioners and in-house counsel, addressing transactional liabilities and risk allocation.

Schnapf's practice focuses on managing environmental risks in corporate, real estate, commercial financing, and brownfield transactions, including asset-based lending, distressed debt, bankruptcy, and corporate restructuring. He also handles environmental litigation, enforcement, and cost recovery actions, and has served as liaison counsel for potentially responsible party (PRP) steering committees.

Schnapf has held leadership positions within bar and trade associations, including serving as Chair of the Environmental Law Section of the New York State Bar Association (NYSBA) and co-chair of the NYSBA Brownfield Task Force. He has held leadership positions within the American Bar Association (ABA) Section of Environment, Energy, and Resources, and chaired the Committee on Environmental, Energy, and Natural Resources Law of the ABA's Business Law Section.

He holds emeritus advisory board status with the NYC Brownfield Partnership and the Brownfield Coalition of the Northeast (BCONE), and previously chaired the Brownfield Committee of the Environmental Business Association of New York from 2002 to 2008.

Standard-setting contributions

Schnapf has participated in the development of several national due diligence standards for commercial real estate transactions, including:

• Chair of the Legal Subcommittee for the ASTM Task Group responsible for updating the ASTM E1527 Standard Practice for Environmental Site Assessments in 2005, 2013, and 2021.
• Co-Chair of the legal subcommittee for the development of the first ASTM E2600 Standard Guide for Vapor Encroachment Screening on Property Involved in Real Estate Transactions.
• Participant in the development of the ASTM E2790 Standard Guide for Identifying and Complying with Continuing Obligations.

Schnapf is also a frequent speaker at bar and trade association conferences on brownfields, due diligence, case law updates, and allocating environmental liability in transactions.

Selected publications

Schnapf has authored a legal treatise published by Juris Publishing, has contributed to several legal treatises published by LexisNexis, and served as managing editor of an environmental transactional book published by the American Bar Association's Business Law Section.

Books and treatises

• Managing Environmental Liability: Business Transactions and Brownfield Redevelopment (Juris Publishing).
• Environmental Issues in Business Transactions (American Bar Association, Business Law Section) — General Editor and contributing author.

Book chapters

• Contributing author, Brownfield Practice and Law: The Cleanup and Redevelopment of Contaminated Properties (LexisNexis).
• Contributing author, Environmental Law Practice Guide (LexisNexis).

Selected law review articles

• "How the CERCLA Notification Requirements Facilitate the Creation of Brownfields and What EPA Can Do to Address This Problem," 11 Sustainable Development Law & Policy 19 (2010).
• "CERCLA and the Substantial Continuity Test: A Unifying Proposal for Imposing CERCLA Liability on Asset Purchasers," 4 Envtl. Law 435 (1998).
• "Explorations in Space Law: An Examination of the Legal Issues Raised by Geostationary, Direct Broadcast and Remote Sensing Satellites," 29 NYLS Law Review 687 (1985).

Selected articles on brownfields, CERCLA, and due diligence standards

• "The Implications of the New ASTM Phase 1 Standard for Property Owners and Lenders," The Practical Real Estate Lawyer, Vol. 38, No. 3 (May 2022).
• "Is CERCLA Joint Liability Still Appropriate in the Era of the Third Restatement?" 36 Natural Resources and Environment 26 (Winter 2020).
• "The Arc of Hazardous Waste Cleanup: From Superfund to Brownfields," New York State Bar Journal, Vol. 92, No. 3 (April 2020) (co-author).
• "New York's Brownfield Cleanup Program," Bloomberg Law (February 4, 2020) (co-author).
• "Vapor Intrusion: A Game Changer for Environmental Due Diligence and Environmental Liability," The Practical Real Estate Lawyer, Vol. 27, No. 4 (July 2011).
• "ASTM Publishes New Phase 1 Standard—But Will It Matter?" The Practical Real Estate Lawyer, Vol. 30, No. 2 (March 2014).
• "A Hard Look at a 'Clarified' Site Assessment Standard," Environmental Law 360 (December 4, 2013).
• "The All Appropriate Inquiries Rule," The Practical Real Estate Lawyer, Vol. 23, No. 1 (January 2007).

Religious and ethical perspectives on environmental law

Alongside his legal teaching, Schnapf has lectured on the intersection of religious ethics and environmental law and policy. In the mid-2000s, he taught a course titled Christianity and the Environment for the Center for Christian Studies at the Fifth Avenue Presbyterian Church, examining biblical perspectives on humanity's stewardship of the natural world. In 1996, he moderated a program for the Association of the Bar of the City of New York on how religious teachings have influenced environmental regulation and protection. In 2003, he spoke at an Environmental Law Institute seminar in Washington, D.C., titled "The Bible and Environmental Law: Is There a Connection?", discussing the relationship between biblical principles and the origins of environmental law. He has also lectured on the religious origins of environmental policy at an RTM Brownfield Conference in 2003 and as the ethics speaker at the New York State Bar Association Environmental Law Section's 2016 annual meeting.

Baseball advocacy

A shoulder injury in his senior year of high school ended Schnapf's hopes of playing professional baseball, and he has remained an avid baseball and Yankees fan. He is involved in baseball preservation and historical advocacy, and his philanthropic support for baseball history is recognized by the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum, where he is designated as a "Champion"-level donor. He is a member of the advisory board of the New York State Baseball Hall of Fame.

Schnapf chairs the Thurman Munson Hall of Fame committee, which advocates for the induction of former New York Yankees catcher Thurman Munson into the National Baseball Hall of Fame.

JFK assassination records research and legal advocacy

Schnapf has used his administrative law experience to advocate for the full release of records related to the assassination of President John F. Kennedy. He serves as co-counsel for the Mary Ferrell Foundation, a nonprofit organization that maintains a large online archive of records related to the Kennedy assassination. In October 2022, the foundation, joined by researchers Josiah Thompson and Gary Aguilar, filed a federal lawsuit against President Biden and the National Archives and Records Administration, alleging failure to fully implement the John F. Kennedy Assassination Records Collection Act of 1992. The case was filed in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California and received coverage from CBS News. Schnapf was admitted pro hac vice as co-counsel for the plaintiffs and also submitted a declaration in the case.

Schnapf co-hosts the JFK Facts podcast with journalist and author Jefferson Morley, where he has discussed developments in the litigation.

In November 2017, Schnapf participated as co-defense counsel in State of Texas v. Lee Harvey Oswald, a two-day mock trial held at the South Texas College of Law Houston before a sitting Harris County judge, using contemporary forensic and legal-defense standards. The trial resulted in a hung jury.