Partner
Latham & Watkins LLP
Jim Arnone is a Partner in Latham’s Los Angeles office and the Global Chair of the firm’s Environment, Land & Resources Department. He previously served as the Deputy Managing Partner of the Los Angeles office and as the Global Co-Chair of the Environmental Litigation Practice.
Arnone has particular experience in compliance with state and federal environmental laws; infrastructure, energy, and real estate development projects; and litigation over the legal obligations of local, state, and federal governmental bodies.
Arnone also has extensive courtroom experience, both in the trial courts and in the appellate courts. He has advised numerous clients on the implications of current and pending global climate change rules, and he also frequently advises clients on and litigates matters involving the enforcement of governmental duties, including environmental laws, open meeting and public records laws, charter school laws, and initiative and referendum laws.
Arnone has often advised clients and litigated controversies involving a wide range of environmental and land use laws, including air quality laws, water quality laws, water supply laws; the California Coastal Act; the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA); the Endangered Species Act; historic preservation laws; and state and local land use laws.
Arnone’s skills and leadership are exemplified by the recent approvals of a plan to advance one of the largest master-planned communities ever proposed in California, the Newhall Ranch project in Los Angeles County. Representing the Five Point/Newhall Ranch developers, Arnone helped lead a Latham team and co-counsel in taking initiative to gain regulatory clearances and to forge a settlement of litigation that the Los Angeles Times called “a historic truce.”
