Emma is the Assistant General Counsel for Illinois regulatory matters for Commonwealth Edison (ComEd), an Exelon utility. She is also a stinky cheese enthusiast, a cancer survivor and an avid Chicago Cubs fan.
In her current role as AGC for ComEd, she appears before its state regulator, the Illinois Commerce Commission (ICC), on a variety of administrative law matters, including customer assistance and customer solutions, energy efficiency and demand response, beneficial electrification, rate reconciliation proceedings, formula rate cases, and most recently, ComEd’s COVID-19 response. Emma collaborates frequently on cross-department issues with ComEd and Exelon commercial and litigation counsel, and other business units, including accounting, finance, customer operations, customer service, regulatory affairs and external affairs.
In her capacity as in-house counsel, Emma provides legal and compliance advice to senior leadership. Emma has led several complex settlement efforts through intensive negotiations involving a wide variety of stakeholders.
Prior to joining ComEd, Emma served as senior regulatory counsel at San Diego Gas & Electric (SDG&E; a Sempra utility) for 8 years. She represented the company before the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) and served as the lead attorney on diverse matters including nuclear decommissioning, investigations, cost allocation, affiliate transactions, research and development, non-traditional revenue opportunities, and general rate cases. Emma was heavily involved in several matters related to the closure of the San Onofre Nuclear Generation Station (SONGS), including the decommissioning of the plant, and related cost recovery and litigation matters.
Emma takes great pride in working for regulated utilities, and approaches each proceeding as an opportunity to arrive at the right solution for the company and its ratepayers. She strives to build strong relationships and trust with Commission Staff and various stakeholders, and looks for strategic settlement opportunities, even in contentious situations.
Before becoming a utility attorney, Emma worked to Jones Day as a litigation associate, and at Legal Aid Chicago as an attorney handling family law and special education law matters. Prior to her legal career, Emma worked and interned for a variety of organizations, including the John G. Shedd Aquarium, the chambers of a federal circuit judge, the United States Attorney’s Office, a crisis communications and public relations firm, a Washington D.C. lobbying group, the National Telecommunications Cooperative Association, and the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy.
Emma graduated from Georgetown University with a Bachelor of Science of Foreign Service and studied law at DePaul University College Of Law. She has studied abroad in South Africa, France and Germany, and is barred in both Illinois and California.
Emma lives outside of Chicago with her two small children, her husband (a professor of political science who commutes weekly to California to teach), and her beloved Labrador Retriever, SallyBear. She serves on the Ambassadors Board for Legal Aid Chicago and volunteers for multiple organizations, including Leadership Council on Legal Diversity and Lawyers in the Classroom. When not working remotely or virtually volunteering, she enjoys cooking, reading, watching Scandinavian shows, and planning trips for the hopefully not-too-distant future.