Uda Law Firm, PC

About

A different kind of law firm.

Story

Michael Uda grew up in Helena, Montana, graduating from both Helena High (1978) and Carroll College (1987). Michael has been involved in the in the energy business since graduating from the University of Virginia School of Law in 1991, when he joined the Portland office of Heller Ehrman White & McAullife. While there he was involved in rate cases on behalf of the aluminum industry in the Pacific Northwest before the Bonneville Power Administration. In 1995, Michael returned to Montana where he joined the firm of Doney Crowley & Bloomquist, becoming a partner in 1997 and remaining as a partner with the Doney Crowley Bloomquist Payne & Uda firm until 2011. While at the Doney firm, Michael specialized in representation of small renewable power producers, including Colstrip Energy Limited Partnership, Yellowstone Energy Limited Partnership, Boulder Hydro, Solar Plexus, Montana Marginal Energy, Two Dot Wind, Hydrodynamics, and Navitas Energy, Inc. and many others.
Through litigation on behalf of his clients before the Montana Public Service Commission, in 2007 Michael successfully increased avoided costs to be paid to Montana qualifying facilities by almost 50 percent. In these same proceedings, Mr. Uda, acting on behalf of his clients, convinced the Montana Commission to increase standard offer threshold under PURPA from 3 megawatts to 10 megawatts, enabling Montana’s renewable energy developers to obtain 5 contracts of 10 megawatts, the first contracts for QF projects larger than 3 MWs in Montana in more than 15 years.

In 2011, Michael left the Doney firm to start his own practice, Uda Law Firm P.C. In 2013, while at Uda Law Firm, Michael achieved success in litigating on behalf of Oak Tree Energy before the South Dakota PUC. As a result, Oak Tree Energy was able to obtain the first PURPA contract in South Dakota history. In 2014, Michael also filed a successful petition on behalf of his clients at the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission which declared Montana’s implementation of PURPA to be unreasonable and contrary to PURPA’s intent.

Michael has recently taken up the challenge of protecting families and children from what he perceives to be an unfair and biased judicial system. Too often in family law, the lack of standards, the lack of true investigation, and unclear and unfair statutes have impeded rather than helped Montana’s families and, particularly, Montana’s children.

Michael is a promoter of renewable energy and healthy families. His energy, expertise and commitment to excellent legal work on behalf of our environment and families is without peer. His lobbying experience is considerable on behalf of the energy industry, and he proposes to bring that same level of commitment to the arena of family law.

Mission

Uda Law Firm, P.C. is dedicated to the future of our families and their environment. Fighting for sustainable, environmentally responsible long term energy solutions for over twenty five years, Michael Uda of Uda Law Firm has assisted in the legal matters of projects presently operating in Montana, South Dakota, and Idaho. Uda Law Firm represented the first qualifying facility ever to successfully obtain a contract in the State of South Dakota. Uda Law Firm has won major decisions regarding implementation of PURPA and its state equivalents before the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, the Montana Public Service Commission, and the South Dakota Public Utilities Commission. As part of that goal to better the environment, Uda Law Firm is dedicated to helping families to a healthy, happy and fair outcome when changes to the family structure occur.

We are dedicated to these goals.