Bobby Schena will probably not get recognition when green spaces and modernized facilities replace contaminated, abandoned and shuttered buildings in and around Philadelphia. But the environmental lawyer doesn’t mind.

Cleaning up brownfields—abandoned or underused properties, from shuttered gas stations to former manufacturing facilities where there’s suspected contamination—keeps the public safe and sets the stage for growth.

“To the extent we can help a municipality or a local public body revitalize an area, we like to help with that,” said Schena, ’13, assistant counsel at the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection’s Southeast Regional Office in Norristown, “but our first goal is always to get the site clean.”

Schena provides counsel for the waste management and environmental cleanup and brownfields programs in Bucks, Montgomery, Chester, Delaware, and Philadelphia counties and is the primary attorney on many cases.

Previously, he worked on clean water projects in the Harrisburg office, where he also completed a summer co-op as a 2L. The co-op sparked his interest in environmental law and led to Schena taking Environmental Law and Administrative courses.

Given the number of old industrial sites in the area and the complex nature of environmental regulation, there’s a lot to be done. “They hand you something on your first day, and you learn on your feet,” he said. “You get cool work, quickly.”

The remediation process, from assessment to cleanup, can be very costly, which is why a promising but potentially contaminated property can sit neglected for years.

“The DEP will often do the remediation in that instance, and then if we can’t find someone [to cover the cost], we’ll put a lien on the property,” Schena said.

On any given day, he might be preparing documents for litigation related to everything from wetlands violations to illegal waste and disposal and storage, learning the technical concerns of hydrogeologists, demystifying legal issues for program managers, facilitating a project with outside counsel, or scoping out a site with inspectors taking soil samples.

The Entrepreneurial Law Clinic prepared Schena to step into such a dynamic and challenging role in government.

“The Clinic allowed me to work with clients one-on-one, which was an interesting preview of what we do as lawyers,” he said. “It gave me practical experience where I had confidence to go talk to a client and figure out what they needed and how I could help them.”