About Greg
Greg Fontaine is a partner in Stoel Rives’ Environment, Land Use & Natural Resources group who focuses his practice on environmental law and regulated industries, particularly mining, transportation, and agribusiness. Reflecting his three decades-plus of experience, Greg’s practice is uncommonly broad, advising clients on a range of matters involving project development, transactions and regulatory compliance (including permitting, enforcement defense, and related litigation).
Clients often retain Greg to navigate the complex relationships between commercial transactions and permitting and regulatory matters, especially projects involving redeveloping or repurposing contaminated properties and the associated demands to address compliance and liability issues and the requirements of governmental agencies. As part of this practice, he has provided advice on a wide range of transactions, including corporate, real estate, securities, and lending matters. He also has defended clients in numerous enforcement actions, including both judicial and administrative proceedings. In connection with both transactional and compliance matters, Greg has extensive experience in working with engineers, scientists, and other consultants who inform decision-making on engineering, scientific, and other technical issues.
Greg has tried cases in federal and state courts and in administrative actions and has appeared before federal and state appellate courts and in bankruptcy cases. He also has negotiated settlement agreements, consent orders, financial-assurance arrangements, and project development agreements with federal and state regulatory agencies and private counterparties.
Before joining Stoel Rives, Greg was a partner at Stinson Leonard Street LLP and also served as general counsel and later CEO for a group of agri-business companies. His first 18 years in private practice were spent at one of Minnesota’s largest law firms, where he was one of the founders of its environmental law group and helped it grow into one of the largest environmental and regulatory practices in the Midwest. After law school, he was a law clerk for Hon. Gerald W. Heaney, U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit.
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