Patrick N. Giordano has practiced public utility law since 1980.  In April 1996, he founded the law firm Giordano & Associates, Ltd., the first law firm in Chicago devoted exclusively to energy and telecommunications issues.  Mr. Giordano provides legal counsel to consumers and suppliers of energy and telecommunications services on regulatory, transactional, litigation and legislative matters. 

Prior to forming Giordano & Associates, Mr. Giordano was a partner at the national law firm of Foley and Lardner, where he headed the energy practice in the firm’s Chicago office.  He extensively represented the City of Chicago in regulatory litigation with Commonwealth Edison and Peoples Gas before the Illinois Commerce Commission and in the courts. On behalf of Chicago Mr. Giordano successfully challenged the prudency of ComEd’s coal contracts and won both $2 billion in savings over the life of those contracts and an additional $102.5 million in refunds to consumers. He also negotiated and closed several power purchase contracts for energy users. Prior to joining Foley & Lardner, Mr. Giordano was supervisor of the Public Utilities Division for Richard M. Daley, who was then State’s Attorney of Cook County. 

Mr. Giordano’s professional achievements at Giordano & Associates include the following: 

• Serving as one of the principal players in the development and passage of the Illinois Electric Service Customer Choice and Rate Relief Law of 1997, which provided for the phased implementation of direct access to competitive sources of electricity for retail customers. He currently represents the Building Owners and Managers Association of Chicago before the Illinois Commerce Commission in litigation with ComEd regarding the method of implementing the scheduled transition to fully competitive electricity markets on January 1, 2007. 

• Acting as lead consumer negotiator of an historic settlement in 2003 with Commonwealth Edison, electricity suppliers and government representatives that fixed significant problems in the Illinois retail electricity market. This settlement was a comprehensive resolution of three major cases pending before the Illinois Commerce Commission. Additionally, the settlement established a fund of $11 million in ComEd money to reimburse Chicago building owners for the costs of installing emergency generators. 

• Settling litigation with ComEd on behalf of various school districts and commercial and industrial customers regarding curtailments of electricity after prevailing in the Illinois Appellate Court. 

• Negotiating and closing long-term electricity supply contracts with electricity suppliers that saved more than $100 million for a wide variety of public and private sector clients such as the Sears Tower and hundreds of other business and governmental accounts. 

• Directing the firm’s legal work that brought to fruition Illinois’ first utility-scale wind energy project, the Mendota Hills Wind Farm.

Mr. Giordano received his J.D. from Lewis & Clark Law School in Portland, Oregon in 1979 and a B.A. from Tufts University in Medford, Massachusetts in 1974.