I have extensive experience practicing law in both the public and the private sector since graduation from the University of Kentucky College of Law in 1984. I was hired immediately after law school by the Lexington Fayette Urban County Government, a merged urban county government, where I handled a wide variety of legal matters ranging from real estate, bankruptcy, personnel matters, litigation and providing legal advice to myriad governmental divisions, boards and agencies such as the Greenspace Commission and the Police and Fire Pension Board.The focus of my experience and area of practice is land use law since my assignment in 1991 as legal advisor to the boards, commissions and divisions of government within Lexington Fayette County on all matters related to planning, zoning and land use law. My responsibilities included attending Planning Commission and Board of Adjustment hearings and working with the Division of Planning on land use applications, zoning ordinance text amendments, comprehensive plan updates and other land use issues. I also attended Urban Council meetings and hearings to advise the Council on matters related to zone changes, zoning regulations and related issues. I handled appeals and other lawsuits arising from Urban County Government land use decisions. I also developed significant experience dealing with governmental divisions such as Building Inspection, Code Enforcement and other administrative bodies due to their regulatory authority in land use matters.I left the Urban County Government in 2004. I have been at McBrayer since that time, handling a wide variety of land use matters for clients in the private sector. I have drafted several zoning ordinance text amendments that facilitate adaptive re-use of warehouse and industrial properties and to allow more efficient land use. In conjunction with the text amendment I have represented developers in the rezoning and development plan process to obtain approval of related projects.
