Robert F. Riley

Bob Riley co-chairs Williams Mullen’s Energy Practice and advises developers, owners, investors, lenders, utilities, data center operators, and industrial energy users on energy project development, transactions, and related federal and state regulatory matters. Drawing on more than 40 years of law firm, corporate, and government experience, he guides clients from planning and regulatory review through financing, construction, acquisition, ownership, and operation.

His practice spans utility-scale solar, battery energy storage systems (BESS), natural gas, hydropower, wind and oil-fired generation. Bob advises clients on project structuring, regulatory strategy, due diligence, risk allocation, and the acquisition, sale, and financing of energy assets. He negotiates agreements involving power sales, transmission, natural gas purchases and transportation, plant operations and maintenance, project development, construction, real estate, ownership interests, and asset transactions.

As a member of the firm’s Data Center Practice Group, Bob advises data center developers and industrial end users on securing reliable, scalable energy supplies. His work includes energy procurement strategy, generation and transmission solutions, infrastructure planning, and agreements supporting large and evolving electric loads.

Before joining Williams Mullen, Bob served as vice president and general counsel to several wholly owned subsidiaries of Edison Mission Energy Company, a major independent power producer and subsidiary of Edison International and a Southern California Edison Company affiliate. Earlier, he practiced as an energy associate at Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld LLP and also worked at the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC), first as an attorney-advisor in the Pipeline Certificates Section and later as a trial attorney in the Enforcement Section. Before and during law school, he worked as a landman for an oil and gas company engaged in exploration and production in Ohio, Pennsylvania, and New York.

Bob’s industry leadership includes service with the Energy Bar Association, including as former chair of its Generation and Power Marketing Committee; the American Bar Association, including as former vice chair of its Renewable Energy and Distributed Generation Resources Committee; the American Council on Renewable Energy’s Renewable Energy Credit Trading Working Group; and the Virginia Chamber of Commerce’s Energy Industry Council, which he formerly chaired. He has been recognized by The Best Lawyers in America® for Energy Law and Washington, D.C. Super Lawyers and has earned an AV Preeminent® rating from Martindale-Hubbell, its highest peer rating standard.

Bob earned his J.D. from Case Western Reserve University School of Law in 1985 and his B.A. from Saint Louis University in 1979. He is admitted to practice in Ohio, Virginia, and the District of Columbia.