Our first runners-up this week are Amanda Halter, Deborah Baum and their team Pillsbury Winthrop Shaw Pittman who secured a ruling eliminating more than a half billion dollars in potential liability for client Teck Cominco Metals in a long-running environmental suit. The state of Washington and the Confederated Tribes of the Colville Reservation have been pursuing claims related to discharges from the company's Trail, British Columbia smelter along the Upper Columbia River and Lake Roosevelt for two decades, including claims for "tribal service loss" brought under the Comprehensive, Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act. But this week Chief U.S. District Judge Stanley Bastian of the Eastern District of Washington granted Teck summary judgment on those rarely litigated claims. "Neither the statute nor the regulations reference a cultural or tribal 'connection' or 'relationship' with a particular resource, let alone possible recovery from loss or damage to that connection or relationship," the judge wrote. The Pillsbury team also includes Ashleigh Myers, Cynthia Robertson and Jillian Marullo.