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Amrit Kulkarni is the head of the firm's Land Use Litigation practice group. He specializes in all aspects of land use and environmental litigation at the trial and appellate level. Amrit has represented public entities and private clients in numerous cases involving the Clean Water Act, California Environmental Quality Act, the National Environmental Policy Act, the State Planning and Zoning Law, the Coastal Act, the Subdivision Map Act, the Cortese-Knox-Hertzberg Act, the Mitigation Fee Act and civil rights claims in the land use context. Several of these cases have resulted in published appellate decisions.Amrit also has significant land use experience representing public agencies regarding major public infrastructure and transportation projects. For example, Amrit represents Los Angeles International Airport (LAX) in connection with its recent approval of a $13 billion airport expansion. He advises LAX on a broad range of land use and environmental issues, including the California Environmental Quality Act, the National Environmental Policy Act, the California Coastal Act, the Federal Coastal Zone Management Act, the federal and state endangered species laws and other state and federal regulatory requirements.Specifically, Amrit was one of the lead outside land use counsel for the CEQA review of the South Airfield Improvement Project, the first project to be implemented under the LAX Master Plan. In addition, Amrit assisted LAX in the defense against multiple lawsuits challenging the approval of the airport's expansion plans for violations of the California Environmental Quality Act and the California Coastal Act. Amrit is also one of the lead outside counsel for the Port of Los Angeles' land use and CEQA review of several large development projects, including a marine oil terminal, a petroleum storage facility, and several major container terminals.In addition, Amrit advised the newly-incorporated City of Rancho Cordova regarding preparation of its General Plan and environmental review of the proposed City of Rancho Cordova General Plan under CEQA. Specifically, Amrit advised the City in its preparation of a Program EIR to analyze the environmental impacts of developing a Planning Area of over 58,000 acres.Amrit has also served as special counsel to numerous cities and public agencies. As special counsel, Amrit has advised his clients on a variety of matters, including the Brown Act, conflicts of interests, elections issues, development issues, water quality issues, water transfer issues, revenue and taxation issues, as well as general transactional matters.Amrit received his B.A. in environmental studies from the University of California at Santa Cruz, where he was the recipient of the Dean's and Chancellor's Undergraduate Award for Academic Excellence and Environmental Studies Board Honors for his senior thesis. Amrit received his J.D. from the Northwestern University School of Law of Lewis and Clark College, in Portland, Oregon. While in law school, Amrit served as a summer judicial clerk for the Honorable Justice Susan Graber of the Oregon Supreme Court and a clerk for the Oregon Department of Justice, Natural Resources Division. | 