By Rich Heidorn Jr.
Former FERC Commissioner Colette Honorable has joined Reed Smith as a partner in the law firm’s D.C. office, along with Regina Y. Speed-Bost, former chair of Schiff Hardin’s Energy Group.
The two will join Reed Smith’s energy and natural resources (ENR) practice, “spearheading the firm’s FERC offering,” Reed Smith said in a press release. Debra Ann Palmer, a colleague of Speed-Bost’s at Schiff Hardin, also is moving to the firm’s ENR practice as counsel.
“This addition underscores our commitment to building out our stateside energy offering in order to meet our energy and commodities clients’ needs, which include responding rapidly and proactively to fluid policies, regulations and enforcement initiatives,” said ENR Chair Prajakt Samant. Founded in 1877, Reed Smith has more than 1,700 lawyers in 27 offices in the U.S., Europe, Asia and the Middle East.
Honorable, a former Arkansas Public Service Commissioner and past president of the National Association of Regulatory Utility Commissioners, joined FERC in December 2014 and left June 30 at the expiration of her term. President Trump has nominated Richard Glick, general counsel for the Democrats on the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, to replace her. (See Trump Taps Senate Aide, Former Lobbyist for FERC.)
Former FERC Commissioner Colette Honorable (L) and former Schiff Hardin attorneys Regina Speed-Bost and Debra Ann Palmer (R) have joined law firm Reed Smith to bolster its FERC practice.
Before joining the Arkansas PSC, Honorable served as chief of staff to then Arkansas Attorney General Mike Beebe, and as an assistant attorney general handling consumer protection, civil litigation and Medicaid fraud. She is a graduate of the University of Memphis and the University of Arkansas at Little Rock School of Law.
Speed-Bost, a former FERC trial attorney and adviser to former Commissioner William Massey, is a graduate of Dartmouth College and Georgetown University Law Center.
Palmer, a graduate of Case Western Reserve School of Law, has expertise in natural gas pipeline regulation and Commodity Futures Trading Commission rules, and has represented clients before FERC’s Office of Enforcement.
