Grant A. Giel

Grant Amadeus Giel is a fifth-year associate and a graduate of Cornell Law School, where he was the publishing editor for the Cornell Law Review and President of the Cornell Environmental Law Society. He has previously worked with environmental and land use law in a state government context—with the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation—and in a public interest context—with the Washington, D.C. office of the Food and Water Watch. Since joining the firm in 2019, Grant has worked on a variety of cases covering special laws/spot zoning, chemical contamination, covenant breaches, deforestation, and stormwater runoff, as well as lobbying efforts throughout Maryland, Virginia, and Washington, D.C. against the development of sprawling industrial warehouses and big-box stores near residential communities. His 2022 reported victory before the Maryland Appellate Court overturned an illegal special law in Howard County to protect residential homeowners. In 2023 he successfully argued another reported victory before the Maryland Appellate Court to expand its articulation requirement for administrative determinations. Grant is a “Rising Star” in the area of Land Use/Zoning, and is barred in both Maryland and New York.