Not Just for Lawyers

Deck: 

Environmental Impacts of Natural Gas Pipelines

Fortnightly Magazine - July 2018
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I am a retired utility, energy, and environmental lawyer. I admit to having engaged in the practice of making and responding to arcane legal arguments in order to support various policy and economic positions. I admit to writing and reading footnotes and to citing many older cases to support important positions.

Yet, somehow, I overcame these bad habits and disabilities.

In my career, I learned to explain the legal aspects of utility regulatory and environmental disputes in plain, simple, English. I cut through the complexities that many lawyers and others use to justify their positions, when much simpler explanations were at hand.

In other words, I compressed ideas from lengthy and heavily footnoted briefs into clear, understandable concepts. I had to be clear to succeed with senior executives, government decision-makers and the public. I am now teaching law students to do the same.

The purpose of this column is to assist those readers of Public Utilities Fortnightly who are not lawyers to understand the concepts and theories that underlie major "legal" disputes affecting the utility industry.

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