Law360: DC White Collar Atty Leaves Baker Botts To Launch Solo Firm

By Alison Knezevich

After a career that has so far spanned government service, BigLaw and academia, Washington, D.C.-based white collar attorney Steve Solow is setting up his own shop.

Solow left Baker Botts LLP last week and today launched Solow PLLC, where he will continue his practice focusing on white collar defense, with an emphasis on environmental issues, he told Law360 Pulse exclusively.

A former chief of the U.S. Department of Justice Environmental Crimes Section, Solow has represented major energy and chemical companies, as well as clients in sectors such as home construction, maritime and manufacturing. He handles matters including internal investigations, corporate compliance, and environmental civil and criminal litigation.

"I do think that I have something unique to offer to clients from my time and experience," he said of starting his own firm. "I think this positions me best to do that."

Solow is particularly interested in working with clients to tackle problems at the early stages, helping them to navigate "not just how best to defend it, but actually how to address it so that it doesn't happen again in the future," he said, adding that he anticipates collaborating with lawyers at other firms.

Leaving a large firm will also allow him to pursue his interest in monitorship work. In addition to launching Solow PLLC, Solow has joined Affiliated Monitors Inc., a Boston-based firm that provides independent monitoring services, as a managing director focused on global compliance and corporate culture.

An example of a high-profile case is that Solow served from 2017 to 2022 as the court-appointed monitor for Carnival Corp. after the cruise line's 2016 conviction for environmental crimes.

Affiliated Monitors founder Vincent DiCianni told Law360 Pulse that over the past few years, his company has seen government agencies increasingly turn to the use of independent monitoring. Solow's DOJ background is key, DiCianni said.

He understands "what the government needs from a monitor, but also has a clear understanding of what a company needs when they are subjected to a monitor," DiCianni said. "There's a balance and a perspective that he brings that is so important to the role of the monitor."

Solow joined Baker Botts in 2019 with a group of other environmental, health and safety attorneys previously at Katten Muchin Rosenman LLP, where Solow practiced for a decade. He also spent about seven years with Hunton & Williams LLP.

A Baker Botts spokesperson said the firm wishes him well.

Solow was a partner with the firm until he became senior counsel this year after reaching the firm's mandatory retirement age of 65. He said he doesn't want to wind down his career.

"I love being a lawyer," said Solow, who is also the longtime outside pro bono counsel for Mines Advisory Group (MAG) U.S., a nonprofit that works to clear land mines and unexploded bombs in areas affected by conflict. "And I also feel that the work that I can help people with is really important and worthwhile."

Nadira Clarke, who joined Baker Botts from Katten at the same time as Solow and recently left for Hogan Lovells along with two other environmental crisis and white collar attorneys, said Solow is someone who "quietly mentors and advocates for people at every level."

"It can be someone in the mail room, the receptionist, a student, a senior lawyer," said Clarke, who has known Solow since they both worked at DOJ.

Solow also understands environmental and criminal laws and their intersection "as a true academic," Clarke said.

He has taught as an adjunct for more than two decades in the environmental law program at Pace University, where he was a full-time professor in the early 1990s and started a D.C. externship program. He has also taught the University of Maryland School of Law, according to his LinkedIn profile.

Growing up on Long Island as the youngest of four siblings, Solow watched his mother earn her college degree as an adult and eventually become an English professor at Adelphi University.

"That was probably as formative an experience in my life as anything … seeing her be able to both get an education and become an educator," said Solow, who is married and has three daughters. "It played a huge role in my decision to pursue teaching and to try" to be "a constant learner."

He earned his law degree from New York University School of Law after finishing his undergraduate studies at Brown University, according to his LinkedIn profile. Early in his career, Solow was a prosecutor with the New York State Organized Crime Task Force.

He didn't think he would ever leave New York, he said. But in 1994, while serving as co-director of Pace's environmental litigation clinic, he was recruited to the nation's capital to become assistant chief of the DOJ's environmental crimes section. The agency had been under congressional scrutiny and criticism from Democratic lawmakers over whether it was enforcing federal environmental laws aggressively enough.

After a few years, Solow became chief of the section. Among the highlights of working there was coordinating an international initiative that targeted the smuggling of ozone-depleting chemicals known as chlorofluorocarbons, he said.

To young lawyers, Solow stresses the value of working in government to develop an understanding of how it really works.

"I tell my students that even though they may spend a summer semester in the government, that even if they never worked in the government again — they will have potentially a better understanding than many people who have worked for many years as lawyers," he said.

This article was published by Law360 on June 3, 2024.