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Practice overview
Clark Hill's administrative law attorneys have extensive experience representing clients before numerous state agencies, appellate Courts, and legislative committees in Michigan and other Great Lakes states. Staffed by attorneys with decades of experience both in and out of state government, Clark Hill is well positioned to handle all administrative/governmental law matters. Clark Hill attorneys have developed significant expertise in many areas of administrative/governmental law matters, including energy, environmental law, communications, OSHA and professional and business licensing.
Approach
Clark Hill's Administrative Practice Group has a breadth of experience representing clients in many areas of regulatory and governmental law. The administrative practice is best known for its expertise in communications, energy, and legislative advocacy. In many of the regulated industries in which our attorneys practice, creating and preserving an ongoing relationship between the regulatory agency, its staff, and the client is as important as the advocacy provided by our attorneys for any specific matter. To help facilitate these relationships and partnerships, Clark Hill attorneys speak and understand the unique language of the regulated industries in which we practice from requiring the provision of UNEs at TSLRIC or TELRIC to minimizing the kWh surcharge recoverable in a utility's PSCR factor or rate design.
Services
Clark Hill attorneys have been involved in communications issues for over forty years. From the days of almost exclusive monopoly telephone regulation to today's competitive marketplace, our attorneys have extensive experience in landline and wireless telecommunications, Internet, cable communications services, and siting of all types of communications facilities. Clark Hill attorneys' possess specialized experience in contracts and interconnection agreements for systems and services, rate cases, regulatory monitoring, joint and cooperative telecommunications projects, rights-of-way, cable franchising, and implementation of the Michigan and Federal Telecommunications Acts.
With respect to energy, Clark Hill has been representing industrial and large institutional clients before the state and federal regulators for more than four decades, and its practice group members offer a broad range of legal services in such areas as energy acquisition, utility strategies, and nuclear waste disposition, enjoying an excellent track record for reducing the energy costs for businesses. Clark Hill attorneys have assisted numerous clients in negotiating natural gas supply and transportation contracts. They have also successfully represented clients in bypassing local gas utilities and negotiating special rates under the threat of bypass. The markets for electricity are undergoing a fundamental restructuring that presents sophisticated buyers with a variety of options. They can negotiate special contracts with discounted rates from their local utilities or prepare for the time when they will be able to purchase power from an alternative supplier and pay their local utility a fee for delivering that power (a.k.a. "retail wheeling"). Clark Hill has extensive experience both in negotiating special contracts and in connection with all aspects of retail wheeling.
Among the legislative advocacy efforts of the Administrative Practice Group, have been to spearhead restructuring efforts before both regulators and the Michigan Legislature in the telecommunications and electricity industries.
Experience
Clark Hill attorneys are well positioned to represent clients in all administrative/governmental law matters, including, for example, the state, federal, and local governmental departments and agencies below:
In Michigan:
- Barrier Free Design Board
- Bureau of Occupational and Professional Regulation
- Department of Community Health
- Department of Public Health
- Department of Environmental Quality
- Department of Human Services
- Department of Social Services
- Department of Natural Resources
- Department of Transportation
- Financial Assurance Policy Board
- Insurance Bureau
- Intermediate School Districts
- Liquor Control Commission
- Local Boards of Education
- Michigan Occupational Safety & Health Administration (MIOSHA)
- Michigan Office of Financial and Insurance Services
- Michigan Public Service Commission
- Municipal Cable Commissions
- State Board of Education
- Tax Tribunal
- Teacher Tenure Commission
In other states and at the federal level:
- Federal Communications Commission
- Federal Energy Regulatory Commission
- Illinois Commerce Commission
- Indiana Utility Regulatory Commission
- Local Boards of Education
- Municipal Cable Commissions
- Public Service Commission of Wisconsin United States Occupational Safety & Health Administration (OSHA)
