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Experience
As a member of the firm's Environmental and Land Use Practice Group, Dana focuses his practice on environmental and land use law and government relations, bringing broad experience with the complex legal, policy, and management issues presented by today’s changing regulatory landscape. Dana advises clients on state, federal, and local permitting issues, enforcement, site remediation and transactional matters. His local land use work includes representation of residential and commercial developers and discrete matters for municipal clients. Dana is also a member of Pierce Atwood's Government Relations Practice Group, representing clients on legislative matters and state agency rulemaking.
He serves as the partner-in-charge of Pierce Atwood's New Hampshire offices.
Before joining Pierce Atwood in 2003, Dana was the Assistant Commissioner of the New Hampshire Department of Environmental Services (DES), a position he held for seven years. During his last 18 months with the agency he also served as its Acting Commissioner. Among Dana’s achievements at DES was the agency’s renewed focus on strategic planning, performance-based management, the management of environmental information, and data quality. He worked closely with stakeholders on water law and policy -- especially on large groundwater withdrawals, stream flow protection, and wetlands regulation. Dana was actively engaged in the resolution of complex permitting issues involving large industrial facilities, energy and transportation projects, and commercial development. He championed DES’s development of a comprehensive compliance assurance policy, and dealt regularly with difficult enforcement matters. At DES, he co-chaired the State-EPA Information Management Workgroup, a high-level committee promoting the information management partnership between states and EPA.
Prior to joining DES in 1995, Dana served in the New Hampshire Attorney General’s office for 14 years. In the last five years of his tenure there, he served as the state’s Deputy Attorney General. Before that, he served eight years in the Environmental Protection Bureau, including two years as the Bureau Chief. He was a member of the New Hampshire Legislative Ethics Committee and the Governor’s Task Force on Rulemaking Reform, as well as the New Hampshire Bar Association’s Legislation Committee and Committee on Cooperation with the Courts.
Education
A graduate of Dartmouth College (1974), Dana received his A.B., magna cum laude, in French Literature. He received his J.D. from Georgetown University Law Center (1981), where he was a Law Fellow and instructor and co-director of legal research and writing and oral advocacy.
Professional Activities
Dana is a member of the New Hampshire Bar Association and chaired its Environmental and Natural Resources Section in 2005-2006. He is currently the vice-chair of the New Hampshire BIA Environmental Affairs Committee, and is a frequent speaker on New Hampshire’s environment and on environmental law.
Civic Activities
Dana is a 2004 graduate of Leadership New Hampshire, and serves on its board of directors and governance committee. He was appointed by Attorney General Kelly Ayotte in 2007 to the Legislative Commission to Study the Consolidation and Centralization of State Legal Services. Dana was also a member of the Governor's Save Our Shipyard Advisory Committee. He is a Returned Peace Corps Volunteer, having served as a teacher of English as a Foreign Language in Gabon, Central Africa, from 1974 to 1977.
Publications
Dana is the co-author, with his partner Mark Beliveau, of the New Hampshire Municipal Association's 2003 Law Lecture Series on Water, Wetlands and the Role of Local Government. He has authored Environmental Performance: EPA and States Rely More and More On Measuring Environmental Results and Making Regulatory Innovation Work - Common Sense and Uncommon Initiative for the September/October 2003 and January/February 2004 editions of New England's Environment magazine. Dana is also a contributing author of Fundamentals of Water Law in New Hampshire: Protecting Water Rights, Use and Quality (National Business Institute, Inc., June 2004 and June 2005 editions), and Water Rights, Allocation and Resource Management in Maine and New Hampshire (Lorman Education Services, June 2004).
Honors and Distinctions
Dana was recognized as a 2005 recipient of the New Hampshire Business and Industry Association's "Above and Beyond" award. He has been listed in Woodward/White's The Best Lawyers in America for environmental law; and in New Hampshire Magazine's list of NH's Top Lawyers since 2005. Dana was honored by the 2005 ECOS (the Environmental Council of the States) Founders Award for his work on environmental data management.
Bar Admissions
Dana is admitted to practice in New Hampshire; the U.S. District Court, District of New Hampshire; and U.S. Supreme Court.
Practice Areas
Environmental & Land Use
Governmental Relations
Related Practice Areas
Forest Products
Hydropower
Land Use | 