Menéndez & Asociados Abogados

Firm Overview:
MENÉNDEZ & ASOCIADOS ABOGADOS is a law firm established in 1996, and based in Barcelona, which works exclusively in matters related to administrative, environmental and urban development law.

The firm’s clients are private companies and public authorities (including regional and local public enterprises) to which we offer services of legal advice. These consist of the issuing of opinions and reports, drafting contracts and agreements, monitoring of public authority procedures, including internal reviews, appeals to the administrative law courts and handling criminal proceedings for environmental offences. In addition to this the firm’s lawyers also draw up draft regulations (laws, decrees and local by-laws) for public authorities.

The main areas in which the firm’s clients operate are: water supply and sanitation, waste management, electricity generation and distribution, the chemical and pharmaceutical, paper, food, textile and construction industries, and public works.

Given the areas the firm specializes in, the firm is used to working with interdisciplinary teams (consisting of engineers, architects, biologists, economists, etc.), and to coordinating their input. Thus if the handling of the case makes it necessary - and depending on the client’s wishes - the firm can arrange contacts with a wide number of companies and professionals of recognized ability and with whom the lawyers work on a regular basis.

Main Areas of Practice:
MENÉNDEZ & ASOCIADOS ABOGADOS offers advice on dealing with the public authority procedures for obtaining environmental permits and licenses in accordance with National Laws. One of the areas in which the firm has acted in a great number of cases is precisely that of legal matters regarding water. In this branch of the law MENÉNDEZ & ASOCIADOS ABOGADOS provides advice on any question concerning what is known as the integrated water cycle.

The correct management of waste is a complex activity that requires special attention on the part of companies. The firm offers preventive advice on the obligations imposed on producing companies, and also on those affecting waste management and transportation companies.

This advice also extends to proceedings already in progress, whether of a penalty nature or concerning liability for damages, approval of by-products or approval of business plans aimed at prevention, agreements and authorizations concerning the regulation of packaging and packaging waste, among others.

To the extent to which environmental law also regulates air, noise and light pollution, the firm provides advice on compliance with limits on emissions of pollutants in the atmosphere, the cataloguing of pollution sites and compliance with ongoing obligations.

MENÉNDEZ & ASOCIADOS ABOGADOS also provides advice on matters related to environmental liability, regulated mainly by the Law 26/2007, of 23 October. It also advises on matters concerning areas of natural interest, protected species of fauna and flora and their relationship to the carrying on of business activities.

One of the most important areas of administrative law is the area concerned with planning, land management and public intervention in building and land use and the monitoring of the legality of urban development. MENÉNDEZ & ASOCIADOS ABOGADOS has professionals who specialize in providing legal advice in this field.

As a firm specialized in administrative law the firm’s services are not limited to the areas described above, and cover all sectors in which the public authority has a clear impact, such as energy generation and distribution, extraction activities, commercial facilities, entertainment and recreational activities and public establishments, pharmacies, subsidies and other public aid, and the tourism industry, among others.