Graham T. Coates

Graham T. Coates is an Associate in the firm’s Energy, Renewable Energy and Environmental Practice Groups. He represents merchant generators, renewable energy developers, quasi-public agencies, industrial and commercial utility customers and water utilities in both regulatory and transactional matters. Graham appears regularly before the Connecticut Department of Energy and Environmental Protection, the Connecticut Public Utilities Regulatory Authority and the Connecticut Siting Council.

Graham works with clients seeking to construct and operate both grid-scale and distributed power generation. He has assisted clients in negotiating interconnection agreements, virtual net metering and submetering agreements, power and natural gas purchase agreements, renewable energy credit (REC) agreements and tax-equity financing arrangements. He has worked on behalf of clients to secure siting, permit and regulatory approvals for traditional fossil-fired generation facilities, combined heat and power facilities, microgrids and various forms of renewable generation technologies including biomass, anaerobic digestion, fuel cells and solar. Graham regularly represents energy interests in legislative and administrative proceedings shaping state energy policy. 

Graham is also part of a team of lawyers serving as general counsel to several large public and privately held water utilities. He regularly advises clients on a wide-range of public utilities issues including merger and acquisition approvals, debt financings, cost-of-service ratemaking and rate design, franchise rights, service extensions, metering policy and rate adjustment mechanisms.

Graham received his J.D., with honors, from the University of Connecticut School of Law with a Certificate in Energy and Environmental Law. During law school, he spent a semester living and working in Washington D.C., where he served as an extern to the Assistant General Counsel for Electricity and Fossil Energy at the United States Department of Energy. Graham was also a legal intern at the Connecticut Public Utilities Regulatory Authority and a research assistant for the Center for Energy and Environmental Law at the University of Connecticut School of Law.

He is admitted to practice in Connecticut. 

• Energy
• Environmental Law
• Renewable Energy
• Utilities

• American Bar Association, Section of Environment, Energy and Resources
• Air and Waste Management Association
• Northeast Energy and Commerce Association
• Connecticut Power and Energy Society
• Connecticut Bar Association, Environmental Section
• Connecticut Bar Association, Public Utilities Section 

• Connecticut Law Tribune 2017 New Leader in the Law

• Extern, U.S. Department of Energy, Office of the Assistance General Counsel for Electricity and Fossil Energy
• Legal Intern, Connecticut Department of Public Utility Control (now the Public Utilities Regulatory Authority)
• Research Assistant, The Center for Energy and Environmental Law, The University of Connecticut School of Law

• September 14, 2017 - Graham T. Coates Recognized as New Leader in the Law by Connecticut Law Tribune
• Two Associates Join Murtha Cullina LLP

• April 1, 2013 - "Green Energy Policy in the Northeastern United States"

• Connecticut

• University of Connecticut Law School (J.D., with honors, 2012)
• University at Albany, State University of New York (B.S., 2008)