Susan E. Brice

Susan E. Brice is a bold litigator, advocate, and advisor with 30 years of experience specializing in environmental law, toxic tort, and product liability defense work. After departing Big Law, where she served in leadership roles, she joined Nijman Franzetti LLP, an all-women owned business savvy boutique in 2020. Over the years, she has worked on significant matters involving at least nineteen states and the Virgin Islands. She has experience in all major aspects of environmental law, taking cases to trial or to hearing that involve the Clean Water Act, CERCLA, RCRA, and the Illinois Environmental Protection Act. She also defends companies in Clean Air Act disputes as well as toxic tort and product liability litigation involving a wide range of chemicals. She particularly excels at working with scientific experts, fluently translating complex science to judges and juries and dismantling experts on the other side, including through the use of Daubert and Frye motions. She collaborates regularly with toxicologists, geneticists, epidemiologists, modelers, and environmental engineers, including using her niche expert experience to work as part of a team with other firms on very large matters.

She has defeated USEPA in federal court and recently won a case of first impression whereby the State of Illinois was forced to reimburse her client for CERCLA remediation costs via state law. One of her large manufacturing clients recently said in a review of Ms. Brice that Susan’s “tenacity and persistence” in finding the weaknesses in her opponent’s case is “really remarkable” and that Susan “has a sharp mind and definitely the lawyer you want on your side as an in-house counsel rather than the lawyer you may face on the other side.”

Susan is a co-author of “Using Genetic Evidence to Defend Toxic Tort Actions,” documenting a cutting-edge means to boost precision in exposure and causation science, which was published in the Journal of Intellectual Property and Technology Law.

She has been recognized as a leader in her field by many publications, including Who’s Who of America and Best Lawyers since 2013.