The West Firm, PLLC

Attorney Thomas West

Thomas West, founder and managing partner of The West Firm, PLLC, is recognized for his distinguished accomplishments in the environmental field by the Best Lawyers in America®, Super Lawyers, Corporate Counsel Top Lawyers, and Strathmore’s Who’s Who.  He is rated AV, Preeminent, by Martindale Hubbell.

Tom has an extensive environmental and commercial litigation practice, representing a broad variety of clients on environmental issues involving counseling, civil litigation, administrative practice, and criminal defense.  He also represents clients concerning contaminated media under federal state Superfund programs, is frequently involved in the representation of clients concerning liability allocation issues concerning contaminated sites, and represents clients concerning the development of sites under the Brownfield Cleanup Program in New York.  He represented industry groups in litigation successfully challenging overzealous regulations relative to the State Superfund and pesticide programs in New York State.

Tom is best known for his ability to handle controversial projects, including major energy projects. In that context, he has extensive experience assisting clients in obtaining permits in all of the regulatory programs, including air quality, water quality, water quantity, solid waste, hazardous waste and low-level radioactive waste.  He also regularly assists clients with environmental issues associated with real property transactions.

In the oil and gas arena, Tom represents clients on a broad variety of issues involving legislation, compulsory integration, administrative adjudication, civil litigation, and investigations by the New York Attorney General’s office. In his more than 30 years of practice, Tom has represented the oil and gas industry on many issues.  He was one of the principal authors of the spacing and compulsory integration legislation that overhauled New York’s oil and gas program in 2005.  He was also at the forefront of the 2008 amendments to New York law to accommodate the development of the shale resources in New York State. He has litigated cases involving oil and gas issues in New York and Pennsylvania.

Tom has also represented clients on a variety of pipeline certification and construction issues.  He was active in the legislation streamlining the pipeline certification process before the New York State Public Service Commission and regularly counsels clients concerning midstream strategies and transactions associated with midstream development.  Also, he has represented major interstate pipelines on environmental issues and has worked with a large interstate pipeline company to help streamline the review process before the United States Army Corps of Engineers.  Those projects include representation of clients before the Susquehanna River Basin Commission and the Delaware River Basin Commission. Tom also represents pipeline companies in construction contract litigation.

Attorney Greg Mountain

Partner Greg Mountain, with The West Firm since 2008, presently manages the Firm’s corporate and individual clients in an extensive array of legal areas, including general corporate matters, such as corporate formation and governance issues, real estate transactions, mergers and acquisitions, land use, development and zoning matters, regulatory activities, eminent domain proceedings, tax certiorari proceedings and complex commercial litigation.  He has significant experience advising and representing clients with respect to real estate development and renewable energy projects. Greg previously acted as corporate counsel for a real estate and hydroelectric generation project developer, and represented a public benefit corporation, as the owner of a substantial flood control and flow augmentation reservoir that benefited several downstream beneficiaries.  He has participated in New York State Public Service Commission proceedings, and appeared on behalf of clients before the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission on project licensing and project license compliance and enforcement matters.  He has also appeared before numerous local municipal bodies on various matters, including New York State Environmental Quality Review Act compliance matters, siting issues, zoning matters and the negotiation of payment in lieu of tax agreements. Greg has considerable experience in asset management, structuring and restructuring of material contracts and resolving complex disputes with interrelated issues.  He has negotiated asset purchase and sale agreements, power purchase agreements and all types of financing transactions, transactional practices, including the Firm’s integrated oil and gas land, title and transactional practice.

In the oil and gas arena, Greg represents operators in support of all of their oil and gas land operations.  He negotiates and closes development agreements, joint venture and joint operating agreements, asset purchase and sale agreements for leases and other development rights.  Additionally, he renders drilling, acquisition and division order title opinions, works on lease and right of way acquisitions, due diligence reviews, curative measures, the exercise of force majeure rights, drill site and pipeline permitting activities, the calculation of complex division orders, lease foreclosure proceedings and other land related matters.  Greg also handles compulsory integration proceedings, including the integration hearing and all related adjudicatory proceedings, as well as land related litigation.  He has appeared before several New York State Courts in the defense of oil and gas leases, and responded to requests for information from the New York State Attorney General.  Greg also actively participated on behalf of service providers in the environmental review process being conducted by the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation for high volume hydraulic fracturing.

Greg’s litigation experience includes appearances before the New York State Supreme Court in several Article 78 proceedings associated with government agency interpretation of its governing statutes, Real Property Actions and Proceedings Law Article 15 actions, and several plenary actions related to oil and gas lease issues.  Additionally, he has extensive litigation experience with respect to real property disputes, building code violations, and the protection of corporate trade secret and proprietary information.  His work also includes litigation before various tribunals, including: the New York State Supreme Court, Appellate Division, Third Department, in a successful challenge to a local municipality’s condemnation proceedings; the United State Bankruptcy Court, Northern District of New York, in the successful protection of a right of first refusal in a bankruptcy auction; and the New York State Division of Tax Appeals where he obtained an Administrative Law Judge decision overturning a long standing New York State Department of Tax and Finance policy on franchise taxes.

Attorney Michael Peters

Michael Peters, a partner in the firm, concentrates his practice in environmental law and complex litigation. Mr. Peters routinely represents corporations and other business entities, developers, public utilities, and municipalities on a broad range of environmental matters involving civil and administrative enforcement, regulatory compliance, regulatory approvals and permitting, adjudicatory and enforcement proceedings, hazardous waste site remediation, brownfields redevelopment, corporate and real estate transactions, project siting and development, and land use and zoning reviews and approvals.

Mr. Peters has litigated numerous cases involving environmental matters and other complex civil and business matters in federal and state trial and appellate courts. He also has arbitrated and mediated similar matters, and has served as an arbitrator in other cases. Mr. Peters also counsels clients on the means of avoiding or minimizing legal risks and liability under the applicable laws and regulations, and has extensive experience negotiating cost-effective and expeditious non-litigation solutions to issues with regulatory and government agencies, private parties, and municipalities.

Martindale-Hubbell, a leading lawyers’ rating directory, has given Mr. Peters an individual “AV pre-eminent lawyer” rating, its highest rating. The American Lawyer and Martindale-Hubbell has named Mr. Peters a Top-Rated Lawyer in Energy/Environmental.  Mr. Peters received the International Law Office (ILO) Client Choice Award in the Environmental category for the United States in 2012 and for New York State in 2013 and 2015.

Mr. Peters received his law degree, magna cum laude, from Albany Law School of Union University, where he was Executive Editor of the Albany Law Review. He received his undergraduate degree, magna cum laude, from Marist College. Previously, Mr. Peters was a partner in the international law firm LeBoeuf, Lamb, Greene & MacRae, LLP, practicing in the Environmental and Litigation Practice Groups, and a member of Stockli Slevin & Peters, LLP.  In addition to his law practice, Mr. Peters was also an Adjunct Professor of Law at Albany Law School.

Attorney Cindy Monaco

Cindy Monaco has been with The West Firm since 2011. She regularly works for municipal, industrial, commercial and energy clients on a broad range of environmental and land use matters involving siting, permitting, compliance, civil and administrative litigation, and general regulatory issues. Her twenty years’ legal experience includes work for clients involved with large scale project development in a variety of areas, including municipal facilities, solid and hazardous waste management, power generation, mining, and water regulation for recreational facilities.

Cindy also has expertise in the application of a number of general environmental review statutes, including the New York State Environmental Quality Review Act and Coastal Management Program, as well as their federal counterparts. She likewise has experience in the application of a broad array of other state and federal environmental regulatory programs and frequently assists clients with their submissions to regulatory agencies in the permitting, compliance and enforcement contexts.

Finally, Cindy has particular expertise in appellate advocacy. In this capacity, she has worked on a vast array of matters in the environmental arena, including suits involving application of State and federal statutes, as well as novel questions of State law.. She has also worked on a variety of other administrative and civil matters for her clients, including contract interpretation issues, labor/prevailing wage issues, and arbitration issues. 

Attorney Christopher W. Rust

Christopher Rust joined The West Firm in 2022 as an Associate Attorney. Mr. Rust has extensive experience in, and joined the firm primarily as, a Litigation Attorney. In his years of litigating in New York State and Federal Courts, he has represented both Plaintiffs and Defendants in many diverse areas such as premises liability, construction and other contract disputes, personal injury and motor vehicle accidents, petroleum spill and other environmental litigation, and equine law.

He is experienced in all aspects of litigation from pre-trial, motion, trial and appellate practice in Court and administrative proceedings. Chris has represented a broad and eclectic range of clients including auto dealerships, construction companies, elevator maintenance and installation companies, horse breeding and boarding farms, winter ski resorts, amusement parks. He has also represented individuals and recovered over $7 million over the past decade for injured plaintiffs and their families in motor vehicle accident and other personal injury matters, as well as successfully defended and earned dismissals of cases on motion involving elevator, motor vehicle and premises liability accidents.

Chris began his practice with small insurance defense law firms in The Bronx and White Plains in personal injury, premises liability, construction and New York Labor Law matters involving elevator and construction companies and motor vehicle accidents and has appeared in all Courts in the five boroughs of New York City and surrounding suburbs.

Relocating with his family to the Capital Region in 2013, he has litigated both plaintiffs' and defense matters in personal injury and motor vehicle actions, equine law litigation involving horse farms, stallion breeders' operations and the New York Gaming Commission, environmental and administrative matters involving auto dealerships and repair shops, in debt collection, real estate transactions, and many other areas of litigation and transactional law.

Mr. Rust received his Juris Doctor degree, Cum Laude, from Pace University School of Law in White Plains, New York in 2008 where he served on the Student Bar Association and President of the law school's Federalist Society chapter. He received his undergraduate degree from San Jose State University in his hometown of San Jose, California in 1995.

He is currently the Vice Chair of the Town of Niskayuna Board of Ethics and a Member of the Board of Directors of the Niskayuna Consumers' Cooperative market in his current hometown, Niskayuna, New York. He also volunteers with the Roman Catholic Diocese of Albany's Residents Encounter Christ Prison Ministry Program and serves as a Cantor for and in the Chorus of St. Kateri Tekakwitha Parish in Schenectady, New York.

Attorney Samantha Whitney Bryant

Prior to joining The West Firm in 2024, Samantha was a partner at a large Albany law firm where she was a member of the firm’s Trusts and Estate Department and Commercial Department. As part of the Trust and Estate Department, Samantha provided legal services to high-net-worth clients in connection with wills, trusts and estates, with particular focus on family business succession planning and multi-generational asset management. She represented clients in probate court in connection with all types of trust and estate administration matters, including contests, audits and settlement negotiations. In addition, Samantha served regularly as a court appointed Guardian Ad Litem and Court Evaluator for estates and guardianships. She prepared gift, estate and fiduciary tax returns.  

As a member of the Commercial Department, Samantha performed the same services to her clients as she does now. She continues to offer to negotiate and closes complex business and corporate transactions, including corporate acquisitions and mergers and related due diligence. Samantha can facilitate your corporate reorganization, restructuring and/or liquidation needs. In connection with real estate transactions, Samantha manages borrower financing, documenting and closing on a wide variety of commercial matters. In addition to the foregoing, Samantha negotiates and drafts various types of commercial leases.  

After more than a decade in private practice, Samantha transitioned to an in-house position with a Fortune 500 company. In her role as corporate counsel, she was responsible for preparing various sales and distribution strategic agreements and government bids. She served as an interdepartmental primary to integrated supply chain and sourcing in connection with negotiation of manufacturing and supply agreements, statements of work, purchase orders and claims. She has experience reviewing SaaS contracts and NDAs. Samantha is also a source for clients who wish to establish a maquiladora.  

Realizing that she missed the more personalized interactions that private practice offers, as well as the satisfaction of playing a key role in assisting clients to achieve their individual, small business or corporate goals in multiple areas of law, Samantha chose to return to the Capital Region and join The West Firm.  

Samantha more specifically focuses her practice on representing franchised or non-franchised dealers who face wrongful termination, difficulty negotiating dealer agreements, or need assistance with transactions that involve the sale and transfer of ownership and accompanying due diligence. She helps clients to negotiate contracts with suppliers and distributors. In doing so, she secures enforceable commitments for appropriate levels of delivery, performance and payment and allocations of risk. Her contracts focus on supporting flexible, innovative, collaborative relationships that drive business value. Finally, Samantha continues to practice in the area of trusts and estates and represent clients with business succession planning and complex estate administration needs.

Attorney Chanda Harris Steinberg

A seasoned legal professional, Chanda comes to the firm with almost 20 years of comprehensive experience in advising clients on a variety of legal and business matters, offering impactful legal and compliance solutions across diverse sectors.

Immediately prior to joining the firm in 2024, Chanda served as Deputy General Counsel at one of the Department of Energy’s National Laboratories, advising the laboratory on a variety of legal matters, including regulatory compliance, contract negotiation, federal and state employment issues, national security, and litigation.

Prior to her role at the national laboratory, Chanda served as the Chief Compliance and Legal Officer at Burn & Reconstructive Centers of America, where she oversaw legal and compliance matters, from contract negotiation to regulatory adherence, significantly enhancing operational efficiency and legal risk management. Chanda also led efforts in developing and implementing comprehensive compliance programs and managing complex legal issues related to healthcare and employment law.

Before this, Chanda was the General Counsel at Induction Therapies, LLC, where she established and managed multiple departments, including Legal, Quality Assurance, and Human Resources. Her work there involved negotiating a wide range of contracts and managing litigation, while also ensuring compliance with medical device and cosmetic industry regulations and standards.

Prior to transitioning to in-house roles, Chanda practiced as a litigator for a number of years, during which time she represented and advised clients in a variety of civil matters, with an emphasis on child advocacy.

Chanda is a graduate of the University of Louisville’s Louis D. Brandeis School of Law, where she was a Dean’s Scholar. She is also actively involved in the community as a member of the Board of Directors for the Aiken Steeplechase Association.

Chanda is licensed to practice law in Kentucky, Indiana, Georgia and New York (pending).