Halley I. Townsend

Halley Townsend is an attorney in Holland & Knight's Washington, D.C., office and a member of the firm's Public Policy & Regulation Group. Ms. Townsend focuses her practice on a wide variety of energy and environmental regulatory matters.

Ms. Townsend's fuels practice includes advising clients on U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and other federal regulations, including the federal Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS), as well as on litigation and enforcement actions impacting their interests. She aids clients in registering as a fuel supplier in various jurisdictions. Ms. Townsend helps clients understand the impact of various regulations on fuels in transit via truck, rail and vessel (marine), as well as on potential product spill liability. She also assists clients with questions involving state low-carbon fuel standards and cap-and-trade programs, including California Air Resources Board (CARB) obligations.

Ms. Townsend also counsels clients trading in derivatives, primarily in energy and environmental markets, on compliance with derivatives-related regulatory requirements, including those imposed by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC). She assists clients with CFTC and National Futures Association (NFA) registration, including clients wishing to register as introducing brokers, commodity trading advisors and commodity pool operators. She also advises clients on creating and improving derivatives trading compliance and training programs. She counsels clients involved in enforcement actions and regulatory investigations by the CFTC and derivatives exchanges, including CME Group and Intercontinental Exchange (ICE). In addition, she conducts regulatory diligence for transactional matters that intersect with CFTC requirements.

Prior to joining Holland & Knight, Ms. Townsend was an attorney at a global law firm in its Washington, D.C., office.

While in law school, Ms. Townsend was a lead articles editor and a staff writer for the Washington and Lee Law Review. She also served as a student attorney in the Walker Program, a local community initiative that helps jumpstart businesses owned by people of color in Lexington, Buena Vista and Rockbridge County, Virginia. In addition, she completed a legal internship in the General Services Administration (GSA) Office of the Procurement Ombudsman, as well as a judicial internship for the Honorable Arenda W. Allen of the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia.