Jennifer Casler-Goncalves

Jennifer Casler-Goncalves is an environmental, land and resources associate in the San Diego office of Latham & Watkins LLP. Casler-Goncalves has extensive experience in a broad range of environmental compliance, and transactional and litigation matters, with an emphasis on hazardous waste management and cleanup of contaminated properties.

Casler-Goncalves’ experience includes representing a major defense contractor in a multiparty Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation and Liability Act contribution action; representing numerous clients in federal and state enforcement proceedings related to Superfund sites and other contaminated properties requiring soil, groundwater and/or sediment cleanup; and defending multiple industrial clients in complex toxic tort litigation and litigation under California’s Proposition 65.

Most recently, Casler-Goncalves helped advise National Steel and Shipbuilding Company in connection with the cleanup of the southern portion of the San Diego Bay Shipyard Sediment Site -- a project that was recognized by the Industrial Environmental Association as a leading example of collaboration among the company, the Regional Water Quality Control Board and other stakeholders. She also co-authors the CERCLA Rights and Liabilities Handbook -- a standard desk reference for Superfund practitioners around the country that has been featured at several American Law Institute-American Bar Association conferences on environmental law.

In addition to her commercial practice, Casler-Goncalves maintains a successful pro bono practice focused on assisting indigent asylum seekers. She received a Pro Bono Publico award from Casa Cornelia Law Center’s Inn of Court, in recognition of her outstanding pro bono contributions to the community and serves on the Pro Bono Committee at Latham & Watkins. Additionally, she devotes significant time to mentoring junior associates in the firm and volunteering in the community, including Big Brothers Big Sisters of San Diego County as a “Big Sister” for the past four years and counting.

Casler-Goncalves is admitted to practice in the federal Northern, Southern, Eastern and Central Districts of California, as well as in the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals. She is also a member of the American Bar Association, State Bar of California, San Diego County Bar Association and Lawyers Club of San Diego. Casler-Goncalves graduated in 2008 from the University of Pennsylvania law school, where she was an editor on the University of Pennsylvania Law Review and graduated cum laude. She earned her bachelor’s degree from Dartmouth College, with a major in environmental and evolutionary biology and a minor in environmental studies.