Christopher Dow is a Partner in Lydecker’s San Francisco office and has over 15 years of defense litigation experience in the areas of environmental law, products liability, mass tort and general liability matters. He also advises clients on compliance with regulations promulgated under many federal and state environmental statutes addressing contaminated soil and water, stormwater runoff and air pollution.
After graduating law school, Chris was Assistant Counsel, and later Associate Counsel, at the New York State Governor’s Office of Regulatory Reform where he advised state policymakers on the promulgation and implementation of environmental regulations. In this capacity, he helped oversee the drafting of regulations implementing the stationary source permitting program mandated by Title V of the federal Clean Air Act. He also worked to find common ground between environmental regulators, private industry and environmental advocates in conjunction with pre-permitting of shovel-ready land use development sites in New York State’s successful effort to attract silicon chip manufacturers.
In private practice, Chris specialized in hazardous waste cleanup cost recovery litigation under the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation and Liability Act (CERCLA) and has represented public and private clients involved in hazardous waste cleanup efforts projected to cost hundreds of millions of dollars. In 2024, Chris wrote and argued a successful cross-motion for summary judgment on behalf of his client based on plaintiff’s failure to adequately follow federal hazardous waste cleanup rules, i.e., the National Contingency Plan.
On behalf of a California county sued by a city for hazardous substances contamination stemming from a former landfill, Chris played a key role in authoring successful demurrers and also a motion for determination of good faith settlement which, combined, allowed the county to entirely escape liability from all of plaintiff’s causes of action, including those brought under California’s Hazardous Substances Account Act and continuing nuisance theory.
Chris has also found success in defending clients in products liability and negligence matters. For example, in 2025, Chris second chaired two trials, one for a retailer of big rig trucks and another for a retailer of big rig truck parts. In the first trial, a strict products liability action involving an exploding truck which injured the plaintiff-driver, his client was found nominally liable with the jury finding the other two defendants collectively liable for 90 percent of plaintiffs’ damages. In the second, a personal injury action in which a deliverer of truck parts suffered injury while unloading a truck trailer, Chris played a key role in achieving a defense verdict.
Chris graduated with honors from Albany Law School in Albany, New York where he was elected to the Justinian Society.
