Mintz Levin Attorney Paul D. Wilson to Speak on Hot Topics in Land Use Law at ABA State and Local Government Law Spring Meeting
4/28/2011
Boston, MA – Paul D. Wilson, a member in the Boston office of Mintz, Levin, Cohn, Ferris, Glovsky and Popeo, P.C., will speak at an American Bar Association (ABA) meeting in Portland, Oregon on May 13, 2011. For the thirteenth consecutive year, the ABA’s Section of State and Local Government Law has invited Mr. Wilson to speak on “Hot Topics in Land Use Law.” Mr. Wilson, who recently served a term as Continuing Legal Education Director of that ABA Section, has chaired this hot topics panel at many past ABA meetings.
Mr. Wilson, who practices in the Litigation Section and is the head of the Real Estate and Land Use Litigation Working Group, will discuss recent judicial interpretations of Anti-SLAPP (Strategic Lawsuit Against Public Participation) statutes, passed by many state legislatures to discourage project proponents from suing those who oppose their development projects. In particular, he will describe how courts are becoming reluctant to grant Anti-SLAPP protection to project opponents whose motives or actions suggest that they are not simply stating their positions to government agencies, but rather are breaching earlier agreements with the project’s developer or are attempting extortion. In his legal work in the area of land use litigation, Mr. Wilson has been successful in both prosecuting and opposing Anti-SLAPP motions to dismiss.
Mr. Wilson’s litigation efforts for housing developers, whom he regularly represents from local zoning boards to the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court, have earned him recognition as a housing industry leader. His recent real estate litigation has also involved shopping malls (wetlands, zoning permits, leases and other contract litigation), a dispute over the right of a quarry to continue to exist, negotiations to avoid litigation with environmental agencies about decades-old contamination, commercial lease litigation for both landlords and tenants, and land purchase contract litigation.
Since the late 1990s, Mr. Wilson has regularly taught trial techniques for Massachusetts Continuing Legal Education in Boston. Other recent speaking engagements include chairing a national ABA panel on affordable housing and speaking to the ABA’s Business Law Section on pro bono opportunities for transactional lawyers.
Mr. Wilson served on the governing body of the American Bar Association's Section of State and Local Government Law from 2006 through 2010. He has been named a Massachusetts Super Lawyer annually since that award was created in 2004.
Mr. Wilson graduated with honors from both Princeton University and New York University Law School, where he was named to the Order of the Coif and served as an editor of the Annual Survey of American Law.
For more information on the ABA State and Local Government Law 2011 Spring Meeting, click here.
