PFAS Contamination at Brownfield Sites: Due Diligence, CERCLA Liability, and Regulatory Compliance

Michael received his J.D. from Emory University School of Law in 2008, where he was on the Dean's List and served as Managing Editor of the Emory International Law Review. He earned his B.A. in Economics from Emory University in 2005, summa cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa. He is admitted in Florida, New York, Illinois, and Georgia, and before the U.S. Courts of Appeals for the Seventh, Eleventh, and Federal Circuits; the Middle, Northern, and Southern Districts of Florida; the Eastern and Southern Districts of New York; and the U.S. Court of International Trade.

Michael serves as 2026 President of the Florida Brownfields Association, following his term as President-Elect in 2025, and sits on its Board of Directors for 2025–2026. He is also a member of the Florida Brownfields Advisory Committee of the New Jersey Institute of Technology's Technical Assistance to Brownfield Communities Program.

Best Lawyers lists him in Florida for Litigation – Environmental (2025–2027). Super Lawyers listed him in Florida as a Rising Star for Environmental in 2023 and for Appellate from 2017 to 2022.

Michael's recent presentations focus on state cleanup practice. He spoke on "Rewriting the Rules: Institutional Controls, PFAS Accountability and Florida's Brownfields Surge" at the 2025 Florida Remediation Conference and on waste cleanup and management at the 40th Annual Environmental Permitting Summer School in 2026. For The Florida Bar's Environmental and Land Use Law Section he has presented "Florida Site Contamination: The Legal Fundamentals" (2024) and a 2025 Florida legislative and rulemaking update on brownfields, and he has moderated "Brownfields 101" at the annual Florida Brownfields Conference. In 2026 he spoke on the impact of S.B. 484 on Florida's data center future.

He is a member of ULI North Florida, the Tallahassee Chapter of the Florida Association of Environmental Professionals, and the William H. Stafford American Inn of Court, as well as the Tallahassee, New York State, and American Bar Associations, and served on the board of the Tallahassee Bar Association's Young Lawyers Section from 2016 to 2019. His writing includes a 2020 Bloomberg Law article and a 2015 Florida Bar Journal article on untimely notice of appealable orders, each co-authored.

Michael advises the owner of a 100-acre mixed-use brownfield redevelopment in Broward County on site redevelopment and environmental regulatory closure work, and advises on environmental issues for a large mixed-use brownfield redevelopment in Duval County. He helps clients prepare Voluntary Cleanup Tax Credit applications to the Florida Department of Environmental Protection and handles the sale and transfer of those credits. He has assisted with construction bid documents for a significant project at a federal Superfund site.

His transactional work includes environmental due diligence, risk assessment, permit transfers, and environmental insurance matters for owners and prospective purchasers, along with due diligence on data center site acquisitions nationwide and compliance and permitting issues in a national self-storage acquisition program. In environmental litigation, he obtained a favorable final order defending a protective seawall in a Coastal Construction Control Line permit challenge before the Florida Division of Administrative Hearings, won dismissal of a permit challenge against a large South Florida marina, and was part of the team that settled a petroleum discharge lawsuit involving a redeveloped former gas station site.

Michael has also briefed, argued, or participated in more than 150 appeals in state and federal appellate courts, including White v. Ring Power Corp., 261 So. 3d 689 (Fla. 3d DCA 2018), and handles international trade litigation focused on tariff and antidumping disputes. Before joining Akerman, he practiced in the New York City office of an international law firm.