Of Counsel
Dan Brown has over 30 years of experience as an attorney in private practice, in-house practice, and government service. Prior to law school, Dan worked for a major oil company as a process engineer and environmental engineer. Dan’s legal and technical education, as well as his extensive legal and technical professional experience have provided him with the opportunity to develop a valuable combination of legal, business, and technical acumen which he has effectively deployed in advising senior executives and environmental directors on a wide variety of environmental legal matters.
Dan graduated from Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, Ohio in 1987 with a B.S. in Chemical Engineering. Following graduation, Dan worked for BP Oil as a process engineer and environmental engineer at the company’s 168,000 barrel per day refinery in Lima, Ohio. Following his tenure with BP, Dan entered the University of Georgia School of Law and graduated cum laude in 1993. While in law school, Dan had clerkships with the legal department of a major pharmaceuticals firm and the Environmental Enforcement Section of the U.S. Department of Justice’s Environmental and Natural Resources Division.
Following graduation, Dan practiced environmental law with two of the largest law firms in the Carolinas Region: Burr & Forman (f/k/a McNair Law Firm) from 1993 until 1996, and Maynard Nexsen (f/k/a Nexsen Pruet) from 1996 until 2002. Dan represented clients from a wide variety of industries on federal, state, and local environmental matters. These industry sectors included chemicals, specialty minerals, pulp & paper, iron & steel, and textiles, among others. Dan also represented buyers, sellers, and lenders on environmental issues associated with real estate and other business transactions.
From 2002 until 2017, Dan served as the in-house environmental attorney for a publicly traded chemical manufacturing and building products company. Dan’s responsibilities included advising the company on environmental and OSHA compliance issues, advising the company on the environmental aspects of M&A and real estate transactions, and managing the company’s environmental tort litigation. From 2005 until 2016, Dan also served as the company’s corporate risk manager.
Dan has his own law practice focused on business, sustainability, and environmental protection – Daniel J. Brown, L.L.C. Representative matters include serving as environmental counsel on the litigation team for a complex Superfund litigation matter involving multiple private and governmental parties, and multiple facilities with operations extending back for over 60 years; advising and counseling energy clients on environmental matters in connection with several solar energy projects; and successfully defending a client in connection with a Notice of Violation (NOV) issued by the Georgia Environmental Protection Division (EPD) alleging noncompliance with state clean air requirements. Dan has worked with the Pro Bono Partnership of Atlanta to advise not-for-profit organizations on legal issues associated with their respective financial and business operations. Dan served as a member of the Interstate Technology and Regulatory Council’s (ITRC’s) 1,4-Dioxane Team.