As we continue to explore alteranative law firm options for our FERC representation, I spoke with Nick Fels with Covington & Burling yesterday about Covington's electricity practice.  Covington is a well regarded firm in Washington, although they do not have a big FERC practice.  I know Nick from the gas industry, but he has been doing a lot of electric work for the past few years.

Here is their list of electric clients:

San Diego Gas & Electric (Covington filed the EL00-95 complaint, but they no longer represent SDG&E in this proceeding).

	-	they still represent SDG&E in the California must run proceeding and in other transactional work 

	-	they also represent an SDG&E generation affiliate in the EL00-95 proceeding

Montana Power in Hydro matters

PPL as a generator -- they represent PPL in the ICAP proceeding in PJM (they like ICAP and opposed the most recent changes, which we supported).

I'm not sure of the issues in the Must Run proceeding and where SDG&E comes out on those issues compared with our positions -- Ray, could you please look into this?

Regarding the PPL representation, we of course would not be interested in using the firm for ICAP issues, but I don't think their representation of PPL on this issue should necessarily prevent us from using them in other matters.

Please let me know what you think of possibly working with a firm who represents these clients in these capacities.  If everyone is interested in pursuing this lead, we will set up a meeting with Nick to get a better feeling for what kind of a lawyer he is and whether he has what it takes to represent ENRON.  We would also have to run a conflicts check through legal before we officially hire them.

Thanks

Sarah