REPRESENTATIVE EXPERIENCE
James’s recent representative experience includes:
- Participating in more than 20 trials involving claims arising under Georgia’s Territorial Electric Service Act.
- Defending an electric utility in one of the first personal injury lawsuits in the country claiming that electromagnetic fields from power lines cause cancer.
- Representing 38 electric cooperatives in a suit to enforce rental and operational terms under a joint-use agreement with a telephone company.
- Representing an electric transmission utility in a challenge to a governmental ban on certain types of transmission lines.
- Representing electric utilities in several cases against municipalities involving the assessment of franchise fees and occupation taxes.
- Representing energy clients in government contract disputes involving competitive bidding laws.
- Defending an independent power producer in a nuisance case claiming noise and other pollution from a combustion turbine plant.
- Defending an independent power producer in a contract dispute involving a co-generation facility.
- Defending an international oil and gas producer and liquefied natural gas (LNG) importer in claims by local distribution companies (LDC) that LNG causes safety concerns and other harms to the LDC distribution system, and that LNG importers should bear the costs associated with repairing any damage to the distribution facilities.
- Representing electric utilities in various state regulatory proceedings.
- Defending electric utilities in an antitrust challenge to an electric industry structure in Georgia.
- Defending a utility in a challenge to incentive-based practices used by electric utilities.
- Representing a utility in one of the first “stranded cost” cases before the Federal Electric Regulatory Commission (FERC).
PROFESSIONAL HONORS AND AWARDS
- Named to The Best Lawyers in America in the area of energy law
- Selected for inclusion in Georgia Super Lawyers®
RECENT PUBLICATIONS AND SPEAKING ENGAGEMENTS
- Co-author, “Municipality Monopoly Is Not Fun for Everyone,” Law360 (February 24, 2012)
- Author, Georgia Territorial Act Newsletter
- Author, “The Use and Abuse of Scientific Evidence,” Georgia Bar Journal, Premier Issue (1995)
- Author, “Trends in Electric Utility Competition Litigation,” Natural Resources & Environment (1994)
- Speaker, Webinar: “Patronage Capital Litigation” (July 20, 2010)
- Speaker, Territorial Act Seminars
- Speaker, EMC Legal Seminars
