Working with Clients to Facilitate Business Opportunities
and Solve Complex Legal Problems.
Adam has a 20 year legal practice with a broad base of experience focused on regulatory and environmental compliance and litigation, natural resources law, water rights, land use and real estate law, and deal-making. He represents international companies, private and public companies, governmental entities, individuals, developers, lenders and investors in virtually all facets of environmental and other regulatory compliance, planning, due diligence, and risk management. Adam has broad experience with environmental matters ranging from air and water quality to NEPA to endangered species, including all state and federal environmental statutes, in virtually every jurisdiction in the United States. He has extensive experience in the highly complex and ever-changing area of air quality compliance and regulatory defense, planning and permitting, and air quality litigation matters.
In the business of water rights, Adam has an extensive background, including many years representing one of Colorado’s largest municipalities. Adam has robust experience in all water rights litigation, including litigating water rights issues in Colorado, Idaho, New Mexico, and before the U.S. Court of Federal Claims. He also represents clients throughout the Western United States in water rights due diligence matters, acquisition and disposition of water rights, and securitizing water rights for both borrowers and lenders.
In addition to the specialized environmental and regulatory areas, his practice includes representation on acquisitions, dispositions and mergers for major international industrial entities, acquisition and disposition of major industrial assets, complex land and water deals, and land use and planning representation for developers of all kinds. This transactional work includes deals of all sizes, representing lenders, investors, owners, developers, and operators.
He has regularly served as outside general counsel to assist companies in managing and directing legal strategies, including companies with small or no in-house counsel presence. His work in this role has helped clients set strategy, expand their business and efficiently respond to opportunities and challenges. He is also experienced at managing and controlling costs for outside counsel and providing effective government relations services.
Adam has significant experience representing non-profits from formation to wind down, and operations and mission accomplishment in between. Having served as legal counsel, board member, and board president, he understands and can help manage the many opportunities and challenges faced in the non-profit world.
Prior to starting DeVoe Law, Adam spent 20 years practicing in Denver at preeminent national law firms, including as a partner at Brownstein Hyatt Farber Schreck, LLP and Special Counsel at Lewis Roca Rothgerber Christie.
Adam lives near City Park with his wife Michelle DeVoe, his three teenage children Lenora, Annabel and Eli, and their two dogs Hank and Goose. Adam is a competitive cyclist and avid backcountry skier. He and his wife love travel, dining and whiskey and wine tasting.
Education
J.D., University of Colorado Law School, 2000
B.A., Purdue University, 1995
Memberships & Affiliations
BCycle Board Member
Colorado Lawyers Committee
Denver Bar Association
Colorado Bar Association
Community
Past President and currently serves on
the Board of Directors of Denver Bicycle.
Michelle earned her undergraduate degree from the University of Kentucky and her J.D., with honors, from Emory University School of Law. While at Emory, she served as managing editor of the Emory Bankruptcy Development’s Journal. Ms. DeVoe regularly speaks on issues of environmental and energy law and recently participated presented at the Colorado Bar Association Real Estate Symposium on environmental implications in real estate and corporate transactions. Ms. DeVoe was named by the Denver Business Journal as one of Denver’s outstanding “Forty under Forty” business professionals. She currently serves on the board of directors for City Year Denver and the Power of Extended Philanthropy committee for The Women’s Foundation.
Prior to joining DeVoe Law, Michelle practiced at a boutique environmental firm and national law firms in Denver and Atlanta. From 1998 to 2002, she served as general counsel for the Upper Chattahoochee Riverkeeper, a nonprofit environmental organization in Atlanta. Ms. DeVoe is admitted to practice in both Colorado and Georgia.
REPRESENTATIVE MATTERS
- Counsel for oil and gas companies in administrative proceedings before the Colorado Oil and Gas Conservation Commission to overhaul the State oil and gas regulations.
- Negotiation and advice on the development and implementation of voluntary cleanup plans, funding agreements, and other details for a municipality as the current owner of a former manufactured gas plant site and of a historic former fluorspar processing facility. The latter property contains Native American remains and artifacts and abuts a historic pioneer cemetery.
- Counsel to a major oil and gas producer on EPA investigation and cleanup issues at a Wyoming gas field with an extensive drilling and production history. The site has been the subject of nationwide press coverage and intense regulatory scrutiny.
- Represented the developer of a high-profile brownfields redevelopment cleanup near the Stapleton neighborhood.
- Sued the U.S. on behalf of the largest agricultural water district in the country in an ESA and NEPA challenge to biological opinions issued by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the National Marine Fisheries Service.
- Defended a Colorado uranium mining and milling company in a challenge to its state surety bond and reclamation plans.
- Represented the same uranium company through the regulatory process for decommissioning its Colorado uranium milling facility.
- Represented a local water and sanitation district in state rulemaking on arsenic water quality standards.
- Sued the U.S. Armed Forces on behalf of a national homebuilder in a CERCLA cost recovery action to recover costs incurred to remediate unexploded ordinance at a former military installation.
- Sued the U.S. Air Force on behalf of a coalition of homebuilders in a case of first impression under Section 330 of the Defense Authorization Act for costs incurred to clean up asbestos in the soil of a former U.S. Air Force base.
- Negotiated an environmental remediation plan and environmental indemnity provisions to protect the interests of a major ski resort in the purchase of a transportation company.
Education
Emory University School of Law, J.D., 1995
University of Kentucky, B.A., 1992
Memberships & Affiliations
City Year Denver
Board Member
Women’s Energy Network
Colorado Bar Association
Colorado Real Estate Bar Association
Colorado Women’s Bar Association
Admitted in
Colorado and Georgia
