A sidebar with Kelly Martorano.

Byline: Thomas Franz

Troy attorney Kelly M. Martorano has been a member of the State Bar of Michigan's Environmental Law Section since she began practicing environmental law 13 years ago.

Now, she is chair of that group.

Martorano, of counsel with Dickinson Wright PLLC, also leads her firm's real estate practice group.

She spoke with Michigan Lawyers Weekly to discuss her election and how she has blended her focuses in real estate and environmental law.

First off, what has been your previous involvement with the section?

My involvement started as a member and then working on committees. That was primarily the membership committee and the young lawyers committee. That evolved over time to being on the council as secretary, treasurer, vice-chair and now chair.

How did you get into environmental law?

It was just always something I wanted to do and had interested me. My initial interest was just to do something with science because I took a lot of science classes and wanted to continue in that vein.

Once I started that work, I was doing a lot with regulations and working on permits and things like that. It just seemed like a natural extension of my initial education and choice to go to law school and continue on with environmental law.

What kind of environmental law cases have you been seeing recently?

My work is more transactional environmental law rather than litigation. I've been helping Ford with their recent acquisition of property in Detroit, not the train station in particular but some of the ancillary properties around it.

How do you connect your real estate practice with environmental law?

On a real estate deal like the purchase of the train station or properties nearby, there would be environmental due diligence that would go along with that.

It's important to look into the history of the property, what it's been used for, and whether or not someone used hazardous chemicals that may have been dumped or disposed of at the property that are now causing residual environmental issues.

We look at that and assess the risks for the clients, then they decide whether or not to buy the property and choose to clean it up or make it safe enough to work or live in.

From a legal perspective, how do you advise businesses that are thinking of purchasing a lot that may be a contaminated site?

Before they even get started, we explain to them the process of getting that due diligence, getting that started and explain why it's important for them in terms...