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Jennifer R. Rupkey
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E-Mail: jrrupkey@michaelbest.com
MICHAEL BEST WELCOMES WILLIAM D. BOOTH
Washington, D.C. (October 29, 2013) – The law firm of Michael Best & Friedrich LLP is pleased to announce William D. Booth has joined its growing Energy Team, effective October 14, 2013. Booth will be located in the Washington, D.C. office, and will concentrate in representing entities before the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC).
Booth brings extensive energy law knowledge and experience to Michael Best. “Having advised a wide range of energy-related entities on all aspects of FERC regulation, Bill is well positioned to help address and answer the growing needs of our clients,” said Daniel L. Sanford, managing partner of the Washington, D.C. office and member of the firm’s Energy Team. “Bill’s knowledge and experience will be of considerable benefit and value to a wide range of entities including investor-owned utilities and their affiliates, public power entities, transmission-dependent utilities, municipalities, regulatory agencies and regional system operators on all aspects of FERC regulation.”
With nearly three decades of service to the energy industry, Booth’s experience includes 12 years of on-site operations at a 1,000 MW nuclear generating station and 18 years of experience as an energy attorney advising clients on all aspects of FERC regulation.
Booth has worked with clients on operations within the structure of Independent System Operators (ISO) and Regional Transmission Organizations (RTO). His background in this area includes providing strategic and legal guidance on day-ahead and real-time energy markets, ancillary service markets, congestion hedging, locational marginal pricing issues, capacity markets and other tariff-related issues in the New York ISO, New England ISO, Midcontinent ISO, and PJM, and previously on efforts to create the Grid Florida RTO. Booth played a key role in the design and development of the New York Independent System Operator, Inc.
Booth has advised on compliance with the FERC’s standards of conduct, open access transmission service matters (e.g., Orders 888 and 890, including conducting in-house audits), EQR requirements, market behavior rules, MBR code of conduct requirements, and reliability standards. He has counseled investor-owned utilities and affiliated companies on the application of the FERC’s rules related to the interconnection of generators with utility transmission systems, and the transfer of FERC-jurisdictional facilities.
Booth has extensive experience drafting open access transmission tariffs, reciprocity tariffs, interconnection agreements, scheduling agreements, incentive rate filings, market-based rate application, settlement agreements, operating agreements, and complaints. For clients in the New England market, he drafted revisions to local network open access tariffs to comport with revisions to the New England tariff.
The United Nations invited Booth to counsel several East African nations on the creation of the East Africa Power Pool in 2009. In 2012, he counseled the Ghana Public Utility Regulatory Commission on the development of U.S. regional transmission organizations and centralized energy and capacity markets.
Prior to joining Michael Best, Booth was a partner practicing energy law at Dentons U.S. LLP, a multinational law firm, and Bruder, Gentile and Marcoux, LLP, a Washington, D.C.-based energy boutique law firm. Prior to Bruder, he practiced energy law in the New York office of Huber Lawrence and Abell, where he counseled marketers in the development of marketing and settlement procedures used to perform energy trading and represented vertically integrated utilities in New York and New England. Booth advised power traders and utilities on power marketing activity, generator auctions, market based rates, futures, options, contracts for differences, transmission access and industry restructuring. One of Booth’s first major projects at Huber involved teaming to develop the NYISO centralized energy, ancillary service and capacity markets and tariffs.
Booth worked as a radiological engineer with the New York Power Authority prior to embarking on his law career. He was also a member of the United States Navy, where he served in the engineering department on board the USS Baltimore, a nuclear-powered 688 fast attack submarine.
About Michael Best & Friedrich LLP
Over the past 165 years, Michael Best has earned its reputation as a leading Midwestern law firm, providing a full range of legal services to clients on a local, regional, national and global basis. The firm has more than 220 attorneys in Milwaukee, Madison, Waukesha and Manitowoc, Wisconsin; Chicago, Illinois; and Washington D.C. Michael Best’s main areas of practice include: corporate, intellectual property, labor and employment, land and resources (environmental and real estate), litigation, tax and wealth planning.
