About Elsa Johanna
Elsa Johanna Schmidt built an unusual academic foundation before she entered the law. She earned both a Bachelor of Music in Music Theory and History and a Bachelor of Arts in Philosophy from the State University of New York College at Potsdam in 1999. She then turned to law, completing a J.D. at SUNY Buffalo Law School in 2003, where she studied environmental law.
Her early legal work combined field experience and public service. While still a student and in the years after graduation she held internships with the Watershed Research and Training Center in 2005 and with the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation, Region 9, in 2006. She joined Stephens & Stephens, LLP as a law clerk in 2004 and later became a lawyer there in 2007. Those positions gave her time in both transactional and regulatory settings.
In 2010 she moved to Kenney Shelton Liptak Nowak, LLP as a lawyer. The shift brought more exposure to client-facing litigation and regulatory matters in the Buffalo area and beyond. Over the years her work has involved permitting, compliance questions, and contested enforcement actions. She has experience in courtroom settings and administrative hearings, drawing on the environmental law training she received at Buffalo.
Schmidt is admitted to practice in New York and before several federal courts. Her memberships include the United States District Courts for the Western, Southern, Eastern and Northern Districts of New York, the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, and the Supreme Court of the United States. She is also active in local professional circles, holding membership in the Bar Association of Erie County’s Environmental Law Committee and serving as a director for the Niagara Frontier Section of the Air & Waste Management Association.
Outside the office she combines an interest in the arts with public service. She serves as a trustee of the Community Music School of Buffalo, a role that connects back to her undergraduate work in music. The combination of liberal arts training and environmental legal practice shows through in how she approaches cases — attentive to context, responsive to community concerns, and comfortable in technical settings.
She remains based in Buffalo and maintains active practice at Kenney Shelton Liptak Nowak, LLP. Her current practice focuses on environmental regulatory matters, permitting, and related litigation.
