Meet Attorney Jacob Podell

Attorney Jacob Podell joined the Wallace Miller team as an attorney in 2025 after working for the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). In his work in mass tort and class action litigation, he focuses on holding companies and individuals responsible for harm they cause to consumers and the environment.

How did you initially decide to focus on environmental law?

Protecting the environment has been important to me for a long time. As a kid, my family would always go to National Parks on trips growing up—I’ve probably been to at least two dozen in my life—so I knew I wanted to do something about the environment. That’s what I’m passionate about protecting. 

I majored in Environmental Studies in undergrad, and then in law school, whenever I had a choice of classes, I looked for options that would help me grow my knowledge of environmental law. After my clerkship with the court, I went to the EPA and worked there until this year. 

What are your favorite parts of the litigation process?

Working at the EPA, I learned that I missed being in court. And I mean that in a broader sense—not just literally standing in a courtroom and arguing, but also writing and doing factual investigation. 

Most of my work has been on the writing side of things. My clerkship was in appeals, so I got the entire docket of what had happened in the lower court. I needed to sit down and figure out what was going on, weed through documents, research the law, and then boil that down into a well-written and concise memo for the judges to aid them in their decision making.  

That’s what I’ve really enjoyed as a lawyer—you’re given problems that are specific and well-defined. You can state the problem and the question you need to answer in a few sentences. And then take the slow time to really think through the issues and do deep, well-written advocacy for a client. It’s an intriguing puzzle that I find personally satisfying to work on, and it’s all the better that now I’m doing it for someone who was harmed. 

What motivates you in your legal work?

It’s a long story, but I promise it’s relevant! When I was an undergrad at the University of Michigan, a student organization would deliver grilled cheese on campus and donate the profits to fight food insecurity. I apparently ordered with enough regularity that I became a minor celebrity. Once in my senior year, I ordered something and the younger student delivering said, “I’m so excited to get to deliver to you, they normally only let juniors or seniors deliver to you.” 

I took a year off before I came back to Michigan for law school, and I didn’t tell anyone at this organization I was coming back. But when I went to their order form, you could pay by cash, credit, or loyalty card—and in parentheses, “for Jacob P. only.” And the person who delivered asked me to pay, thinking, “Oh, this jokester just clicked the free option.” I was like, “No, it’s me!” 

The point of all this is, there was a restaurant in Ann Arbor that just did grilled cheese. But I didn’t order from there with any religious frequency. This was something I liked—the grilled cheese—combined with doing some good in the world. 

And that combination is what I seek out in my legal career. I enjoy being a lawyer. I enjoy the deep writing and the intricate puzzles I get to work on. But that in and of itself is not enough. It’s doing some good in the world and fighting for people who have been harmed, usually by large corporations, that generates that passion for me. 

Can you tell me about a time when you felt you really made a difference?

Through happenstance, I became the point of contact for mercury at the EPA. So if there was an emergency mercury spill, I was often either put on the case or contacted for advice. 

Mercury is toxic even in amounts less than an ounce. I was notified that a scrapyard had 15 pounds of mercury stored in a jar in an unlocked shed. Some kids had grabbed it and were playing with it outside, and then they all went to their apartments, and it spread through multiple apartment complexes. Mercury’s almost alive or like fire in its ability to spread, because so little of it is needed and it can contaminate any area it touches and then migrate. 

I was the attorney on that case. Because mercury is so dangerous, it requires intervention from a whole team of people who are the best at what they do. There were people in the field in hazmat suits tearing up inches of concrete, and I felt like the guy in the chair, behind the scenes giving guidance. As emergencies came up, they’d contact me with questions they needed the answers to. 

That felt really good. I wasn’t the person in the hazmat suit cleaning it up, but I was providing the necessary support to do this very important work addressing the crisis and making sure everyone was safe. 

We got it cleaned up in about two weeks. But that cost a million dollars of taxpayer money. And then it became my responsibility to go sue the people who had caused the incident. And that felt really good too. This company was sloppy, and someone else had to pick up the tab. The company gets all the benefits in that situation because the harm is so dispersed.  

But they shouldn’t be able to get away with that, and it felt really good making sure that they were held accountable for the harm they had caused and for their responsibility to the public. 

What can plaintiffs’ attorneys and law firms do in these types of cases?

It’s harder for private entities to sue, both in amount of resources and the way the legal system is set up. At the EPA, I just needed to prove that these companies were violating the law. The plaintiffs’ bar has to prove harm in order to have a case, and that’s harder to do. 

That being said, I think and hope the plaintiffs’ bar will step up to fill that gap. The work needs to be done. Harm is happening and it needs to be corrected.  

That’s another reason I’m excited to be at Wallace Miller. My goals have stayed the same, but my old employer’s goals have changed. Now I’m with an employer that shares my goals. I hope at Wallace Miller to continue doing what I was doing at the EPA, which is getting people who profit from causing harm to pay for the harm they cause. 

Read more about Jacob’s work in his bio.