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Gail A. Flesher
Senior Counsel

Ms. Flesher is senior counsel in Davis Polk’s Corporate Department and the Environmental Group. She represents U.S. and international companies, boards of directors, financial institutions, private equity and venture capital groups and other entities on environmental matters in the context of transactions, including mergers and acquisitions, real estate investments, bankruptcies and restructurings and securities offerings. Ms. Flesher provides advice on a wide range of environmental matters, varying from liability analysis in the context of structuring and valuing a transaction to risk allocation among private parties to specific advice on air, water, superfund and carbon trading laws.

She has regularly advised many of the firm’s clients, including Western Refining, Westar Energy, Patriot Coal, Repsol YPF, Emerson Electric and VF Corporation, as well as Metalmark Capital, DLJ Merchant Banking Partners, Stockbridge Real Estate Funds, Avista Capital Partners, Crestview Partners and Welsh, Carson, Anderson & Stowe and a large number of major investment banks.

Contact
Related Practices
Bar Admissions
  • State of New York
  • State of Connecticut
Education
  • B.S., University of Pennsylvania, The Wharton School, 1983
  • J.D., UC Hastings College of the Law, 1988
    • Member, Hastings Law Journal

Work Highlights

Recent Representations
  • Advised Comcast in connection with its $37 billion NBCUniversal joint venture with General Electric
  • Advising Metalmark Capital Partners and its portfolio company Monarch Natural Gas in connection with Monarch’s $23 million acquisition of substantially all of the Riverbend midstream assets and the salt water evaporative facilities of Gasco Energy
  • Advised the lead managers on the $459 million SEC-registered initial public offering of common stock of Cloud Peak Energy, the third-largest producer of coal in the U.S.
  • Advised ExxonMobil on its $41 billion all-stock acquisition of XTO Energy
  • Advising Morgan Stanley Infrastructure Partners and Veolia Energy North America in connection with the formation of a joint venture and the $320 million cash acquisition by that joint venture of the Medical Area Total Energy Plant (MATEP) from NSTAR
Recognition

Listed as a leading environmental lawyer in several legal industry publications, including:

  • Chambers USA: America’s Leading Lawyers for Business (from its inception in 2003-2004 through and including the most recent issue (2010), where she is one of only three lawyers listed in New York in the first tier for environmental transactions)
  • Law Business Research’s Who’s Who Legal–The International Who’s Who of Environmental Lawyers and Who’s Who Legal–USA - Environment
  • incisivemedia’s (formerly American Lawyer Media) Corporate Counsel: Best Lawyers in America in Environmental Law
  • Practical Law Company’s Cross-border Environment Handbook

Ms. Flesher was named 2011 “New York Environmental Lawyer of the Year” by Best Lawyers.

Of Note

Current Memberships

  • Member, American Bar Association
  • Member, New York City Bar
  • Member and Secretary, Board of Trustees, 1066 Foundation, University of California Hastings College of the Law
  • Member and Co-Chair, Softball Board, University of Pennsylvania

Past Memberships

  • Member, NALP Foundation Board of Trustees, 1998-2003
  • Member, Membership Committee, New York City Bar, 1998-2001
  • Member, Environmental Law Committee, New York City Bar, 1995-1998
Professional History
  • Senior Counsel, 2010-present
  • Partner, 1996-2010
  • Associate, 1988-1996