MICHAEL D. PEARIGEN

Biography

Mike Pearigen is a founding member of the Luna Law Group, PLLC, serves as the firm's Managing Member, and has practiced law for over 25 years in both government and private law firm settings. During his service with the Tennessee Attorney General and Reporter's Office from 1981 to 1992, his primary client agencies were the Tennessee Department of Environment and Conservation and the Tennessee Wildlife Resources Agency. His private practice since 1992 has included representing a variety of businesses and individuals with environmental and other regulatory issues pending before Federal, State, and local government agencies and with transactional issues involving environmental matters. He has also represented various State and local governmental entities since entering private practice.

A Nashville native, Mr. Pearigen received a Bachelor of Arts degree, with Distinction, from Southwestern At Memphis (Rhodes College) in 1977. He received his Juris Doctor degree in 1981 from the University of Tennessee College of Law, where he was a staff member of The Tennessee Law Review.

He served as an Assistant Attorney General with the Tennessee Attorney General and Reporter's Office from 1981 to 1983 in its Civil Division and from 1983 to 1988 in its Environmental Division. From 1988 to 1992, Mr. Pearigen was Deputy Attorney General for Environment for the State of Tennessee. From 1992 until the beginning of 2002, Mr. Pearigen was in private practice with the Nashville firm of Waller Lansden Dortch & Davis, PLLC.

During his tenure with the Attorney General's Office, Mr. Pearigen was the lead attorney for the State of Tennessee from 1985 to 1992 in the Champion Paper Company-Pigeon River Proceedings. He was also instrumental in the negotiation of the EPA/State of Tennessee/U. S. Department of Energy "Federal Facility Agreement Relative to Environmental Cleanup of DOE's Oak Ridge Reservation," as well as the EPA/State of Tennessee/Boliden Intertrade, A. G. "Environmental Agreement and Covenant Not to Sue Relative to Tennessee Chemical Company Facilities at Copperhill, Tennessee."

While in private practice, Mr. Pearigen served as special counsel to the Metropolitan Development and Housing Authority for the pre-construction and excavation phase of the Nashville Arena (Gaylord Entertainment Center) Project. He has represented clients in environmental permitting and enforcement matters and in rulemaking proceedings such as the Aquatic Resource Alteration Permit (ARAP) regulations adopted by the Tennessee Water Quality Control Board in 2000. He is the author of the chapters on "Water Pollution Control," "Enforcement," and "Review of Agency Decisionmaking" in the Tennessee Environmental Handbook (Government Institutes 2001).

During Governor Phil Bredesen's successful 2002 gubernatorial campaign, Mr. Pearigen served as Chairman of the campaign's Conservationists for Bredesen Committee.  From November 2002 to January 2003, he served as a member of then Governor-Elect Bredesen's Transition Advisory Committee on the Tennessee Department of Environment and Conservation.

From 1994 to 1997, Mr. Pearigen was a member of the Board of Directors of United Cerebral Palsy of Middle Tennessee, Inc.  From 1994 to 2002, he was a member of the Board of Directors of the Tennessee Conservation League(now the Tennessee Wildlife Federation) and from 1998 to 2006 he served on the Board of Directors of the Tennessee Environmental Endowment.

Mr. Pearigen is a former Chairman of the Environmental Law Committee of the Nashville Bar Association. He is a member of the Environmental Law Section of the Tennessee Bar Association and is a member of the Section of Environment, Energy and Resources, the Section of Business Law, the Section of State and Local Government Law, the Section of Administrative Law and Practice, and the Section of Litigation of the American Bar Association. Mr. Pearigen was recognized in "The Best Lawyers in America" in 2008 and 2009, a national peer-review survey, in the area of environmental law.