Vinson & Elkins has lured Ronald Tenpas, who was formerly the U.S. government’s highest ranking environmental lawyer, to join the firm in its Washington, D.C. office.
V&E announced the addition of Tenpas, who most recently was practicing at Morgan Lewis, to its environmental and natural resources practice this week. He will handle government enforcement matters related to environmental litigation and alleged environmental law violations.
“Ron is one of the top lawyers in the country, whose reputation and high-level government and private practice experience will add tremendous value to our growing environmental litigation practice,” V&E Chairman Mark Kelly said in a statement.
“He also adds to our bench of former federal prosecutors and enhances V&E’s reputation as one of the leading white collar criminal defense firms in the nation.”
At the end of his 12-year career with the U.S. Department of Justice, Tenpas served as the Assistant Attorney General for the Environment and Natural Resources Division from 2007 to 2009, a position he was nominated to by President George W. Bush. As the government’s lead environmental lawyer, Tenpas managed a 700-person division that included 400 lawyers and oversaw more than 150 environmental and natural resources laws.
A former law clerk to Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist, Tenpas spearheaded various other efforts at the Justice Department. He chaired the DOJ’s healthcare fraud coordinating committee, served on the Attorney General’s Advisory Committee of U.S. Attorneys and served as executive director of the 17-agency Identity Theft Task Force.