Public Utility Law Section Winter Luncheon
Date: Dec 14, 2023 12:00 p.m. – 2:00 p.m.
Location: New Jersey Law Center,
Member Price: $55
Section Price: $55
Areas of Law: Public Utility
Keynote
Moderator
Presenters
Join the Public Utility Law Section for their Annual Winter Luncheon on Thurs., Dec. 14 from 12 to 2 p.m.
The luncheon will be followed by a ceremony and presentation of the Lacey Award. This years Lacey Award will be presented to James Laskey, Esq. The keynote speaker will be Catherine Klinger Kutcher, Executive Director, Governor's Office of Climate Action and the Green Economy.
About the Recipient:
Jim Laskey has practiced before the New Jersey Board of Public Utilities since 1982, first at a small boutique firm in Newark founded by Howard Rosen and Sid Weiss, and for the last 39-plus years at Norris McLaughlin in Bridgewater, where he worked for many years with Skip Reinhard, another long-standing BPU practitioner.
Thanks to the BPU’s new public record database, a search reveals that Jim has been involved in nearly 400 dockets over the years. Many of these have involved the representation not of traditional utilities, but rather enterprises seeking to compete with utilities, or end users seeking to take advantage of competitive opportunities. In particular, he represented MCI Telecommunications before the Board from 1983 until it was acquired by Verizon by 2006. In this role, he helped form the rules of the road that led to telecommunications competition, with a little help at one point from the Appellate Division. More recently, he has led the firm’s representation of the cable provider Altice, the parent company of Cablevision.
Jim has also been involved in proceedings involving electric, gas, water and wastewater utilities. In recent years, he has concentrated on matters related to solar energy, including one proceeding where the Board agreed to waive the requirement for individual electric meters for a new multi-unit apartment building, so that the building could be the first Zero Net Energy building constructed in New Jersey.
Jim was Chair of the Public Utility Law Section of the New Jersey State Bar Association during the 1997-1998 term, and has remained active in the Section since then. In 2004, he led an effort to obtain a clarification from the New Jersey Election Law Enforcement Commission that attorneys representing clients in administrative proceedings would not be considered lobbyists, despite the new term of “influencing governmental processes” that had been added to the statutory definition of lobbying. He received a special award from the Bar Association for this effort. On the transactional side, Jim has been involved as local counsel in many significant energy development projects, including the recent completion of the state’s largest solar farm on a Superfund site, the former Ciba Geigy facility in Toms River.
Prior to entering private practice, Jim spent three years working for the Antitrust Division of the United States Department of Justice in Washington, D.C., where he received his introduction to deregulation in the transportation and telecommunications industries, including the proceeding that led to the split-up of the old Ma Bell system. Before that, he clerked for New Jersey Supreme Court Justice Sidney M. Schreiber.
Jim is married to Mary Jacobson, a retired judge of the NJ Superior Court. They recently celebrated their 40th anniversary, and have 3 adult children (but no lawyers).
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