Best Lawyers in America for Municipal Law
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State
JAMES B. HADDOW was born in Quincy, Massachusetts on June 25, 1959. He is admitted to practice in Maine, the United States District Court for the District of Maine, the United States Court of Federal Claims, the United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, United States Court of Appeals for the First Circuit, and the United States Supreme Court. He is the author of The Evolution of the Maine Law of Attachment on Ordinary and Trustee Process, 7 Me. Bar Journal 2 (1992), and Legal Is...
James V. Kelsh is a partner in the Charleston office of Bowles Rice and leads the firm's Infrastructure and Public Utilities practice areas. He is involved with entities involved on all sides of broadband, utility scale solar, water, sewer, electric, telecommunications, natural gas, solid waste, local government, and motor carrier services. He focuses his practice on representing clients before the Public Service Commission of West Virginia. He also provides extensive assistance by advising c...
Amy Tchao is the Leader of the firm’s Municipal Law Practice Group and has over twenty-five years of experience advising municipalities and other public clients on a broad range of municipal issues, including land use permitting and enforcement, zoning compliance (including shoreland zoning matters), ordinance drafting (including zoning/land use ordinances and other ordinances governing short-term rentals, impact fees and other specialty areas), cannabis regulation, elections, freedom o...
Ira W. Bloom is a senior partner in the firm. He has practiced in the land use and municipal areas for many years. Mr. Bloom has been Town Attorney for Westport since 1998, Town Attorney for New Canaan since 2012, Town Counsel for Wilton since 2016, Weston Town Attorney since May 2018, and has served as counsel to Easton and Madison for several years. He has also represented other municipalities, along with numerous applicants and neighborhood associations throughout the state. Mr. Bloom is a...
Thomas McGonigle is a top attorney recognized by Best Lawyers in the practice area(s) of Municipal Law. Thomas, who practices law in Wilmington, Delaware, has been recognized since 2025. This recognition is based on an exhaustive peer-review survey, reflecting the high esteem in which Thomas is held by other top lawyers in the same geographic and legal practice area.
Erica Garrison is known for her creative problem solving, her client-centered approach and her unique understanding of municipal and state regulatory law. She specifically focuses her practice on entitlement and land-use projects in Nashville, helping to shape the landscape by permitting and entitling numerous projects that have beneficially impacted the city’s skyline. Erica daily interfaces with agencies in Nashville and the surrounding mid-south area, and she is well-known for her en...
Chandler is a senior attorney in the Corporate and Securities Practice Group at Bradley. His practice focuses on public finance, including serving as bond counsel and underwriter’s counsel on both tax-exempt and taxable financings throughout Alabama. He has worked with numerous types of public entities, including cities, counties, school boards, utility boards and state-level authorities. He also represents governmental entities in economic development matters. Chandler also has extensi...
Katie Baynes, a partner in Nixon Peabody’s Public Finance group, focuses her practice on project finance, infrastructure finance and public finance. She represents government authorities, issuers and underwriters in connection with project financings including stadiums and arenas as well as industrial development revenue bonds; college and university bonds; hospital, health care, and senior living bonds; and other exempt facility bonds. What do you focus on? Project Finance I have been ...
Edward J. McKenney, Jr. is an attorney with Harris Shelton PLLC in Memphis, Tennessee . He has decades of experience representing public and private clients in civil litigation in both state and federal courts. His practice focuses on municipal law , employment law defense, education law, business litigation , personal injury matters, and contract disputes. His recognized practice areas include Employment Law - Management, Litigation - Municipal, and Municipal Law. Mr. McKenney has been with ...
Diane Calta is a key member of the firm’s civil litigation and real estate and land use practice groups, bringing over 25 years of legal experience in municipal law, economic development, litigation, real estate, eminent domain, and probate and estate planning. She currently serves as Director of Law for Mayfield Village and as special legal counsel for the City of Independence. Her previous roles include serving as Director of Law for the cities of Beachwood and Green. Diane has also h...
Chris Muirhead concentrates his practice in the area of public finance. For more than twenty years, numerous New Mexico municipalities and counties have relied on Chris for advice on their public financing matters such as general obligation bonds, gross receipts tax revenue bonds, utility system revenue bonds, special district financings, and economic development projects. He serves as general counsel and issuer’s counsel for the New Mexico Hospital Equipment Loan Council, a state-wide ...
Ms. Bowman has had a significant amount of experience acting both as bond counsel and underwriter’s counsel in a number of bond transactions, both at the state and local levels. She has acted as bond counsel for regional wastewater treatment and other systems, and represented the owners of a $230 million racetrack in Kansas City, Missouri in connection with bond financing for the facility. Ms. Bowman represents clients in securities law matters. She has also counseled clients on complia...
Mr. Sher is a business lawyer whose practice is concentrated in commercial real estate and business and finance law. He also practices in the areas of: commercial litigation, creditors' rights, workouts and foreclosures, commercial bankruptcy, disaster recovery, arbitration and mediation, secured finance and asset based lending. Along with his practice, Mr. Sher is actively involved with many professional and trade organizations, including the American College of Real Estate Lawyers, where he...
Our Methodology
Recognition by Best Lawyers is based entirely on peer review. Our methodology is designed to capture, as accurately as possible, the consensus opinion of leading lawyers about the professional abilities of their colleagues within the same geographical area and legal practice area.
The Process
Best Lawyers employs a sophisticated, conscientious, rational, and transparent survey process designed to elicit meaningful and substantive evaluations of the quality of legal services. Our belief has always been that the quality of a peer review survey is directly related to the quality of the voters.