G. Macy Nelson

Mr. Nelson’s cases span the areas of Environmental Law, Land Use & Zoning, and associated Appellate Practice. He has been Maryland’s most active and most successful private-sector plaintiff’s environmental lawyer since the mid-1980s. He has successfully litigated environmental cases in the United States District Court, the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit, Maryland’s various circuit courts, the Maryland Appellate Court, and the Maryland Supreme Court, as well as administrative agencies. Since the mid-1990s, Mr. Nelson has also represented citizens in land use and zoning cases throughout Maryland. His cases have carried with them heavy precedential weight; Maryland’s highest court has accepted for review sixteen of his cases since 2007. His robust portfolio has shaped the common law regarding standing in the federal and state courts, the federal Clean Water Act, the test for special exceptions in Maryland, inverse condemnation claims against the government arising out of pollution, compliance with county master plans, industrial nuisances in Maryland, and thermal pollution of trout streams in Maryland.

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Mr. Nelson graduated from Haverford College in 1978 and the University of Maryland School of Law in 1981. Mr. Nelson has been recognized as a Maryland “Super Lawyer” in the area of Environmental Litigation since 2015. He is barred in both Maryland and Washington, D.C.