William (“Bill”) A. Mullins is a Partner at Baker & Miller PLLC where his practice concentrates on all aspects of the transportation industry, including railroad mergers, regulatory rulemakings, litigation and legislative initiatives. He represents clients in proceedings before the Surface Transportation Board (“STB”), the Department of Transportation (“DOT”), the Department of Justice (“DOJ”) as well as at U.S. appellate and district courts.

        

         Mr. Mullins was directed toward a career in transportation law via his first position out of law school when he served (1987-1993) as Chief Counsel and then as Chief of Staff to Commissioners at the predecessor agency to the STB, the Interstate Commerce Commission (“ICC”). While at the ICC, he was responsible for providing legal analysis of railroad rate and service issues and rail restructuring transactions (mergers, line sales, line construction, and line abandonments); the interplay between federal and state laws regulating the transportation industry; trucking and shipping company matters; intercity passenger bus company structure, financial and operational matters; and rates and services of pipelines not regulated by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission. Before his service at the ICC, he held a position reporting to the Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights at the Department of Justice and served as a member of the Task Force for the confirmation of Supreme Court Justice William Rehnquist. He also worked as an intern in the Office of the Secretary at the Department of Transportation. Prior to joining Baker & Miller PLLC in 2003, Mr. Mullins was a Partner and the Transportation Practice Group Leader at Troutman Sanders, LLP (1993-2003).

           

        Colorado born (1961) and raised, Mr. Mullins was educated at the University of Colorado where he had the honor of joining Phi Beta Kappa his junior year and later graduated in 1984 with a Bachelor of Arts in General Studies Summa Cum Laude and a B.A. in Political Science Magna Cum Laude. He received his Juris Doctor from the University of Colorado School of Law in 1987.

 

        Mr. Mullins’ representative engagements include serving as lead counsel in the proposed “NAFTA Rail” transaction, which involved placing a Class I U.S. railroad and the largest privately owned Mexican railroad under common control and management, a transaction that had never before been proposed. He was involved with the railroad privatization process in Mexico both inside and outside of the government.

 

         Other representative engagements include representing a Class I railroad or large shippers in every recent railroad merger, including Burlington Northern/Santa Fe merger, Union Pacific/Southern Pacific merger, Canadian National/Illinois Central merger, CSX/Norfolk Southern/Conrail transaction, and the Canadian National/Burlington Northern Santa Fe merger; representing shippers and carriers in rail line construction proceedings; providing transportation advice and counsel on several transactions undertaken by one of Wall Street’s largest private equity placement and financing firms; representing a large utility in developing a process whereby the common carrier obligation was separated from the ownership of rail assets and thereby allowing for development of both freight and passenger operations; advising city and county governments on the scope of federal preemption over the transportation industry; and briefing corporate officers for Congressional meetings and preparing testimony.

 

         Mr. Mullins is a Board Member of the Intermodal Transportation Institute at the University of Denver. His professional affiliations include the Association for Transportation Law, Logistics and Policy; the Colorado Bar Association; the District of Columbia Bar; and The Federalist Society. He has been a panelist or featured speaker at various conferences sponsored by the Transportation Research Board, Transportation Research Forum and Escalation Consultants and he served on a panel at the Center for International Legal Studies Conference on the Provision Of International Services and Sale Of Goods in Salzburg, Austria regarding “The Basic Structure Of The Rail Freight System In The United States Compared To Some Of The Other Models Of Privatization In England, Mexico, And South America”. Every year since 2001, he has been selected by Rail Business/Rail Outlook as one of the “Industry Experts” to provide an annual analysis of the rail industry. He is often quoted by numerous magazines and periodicals, including the Journal of Commerce, Traffic World, and Rail Business. He has written several articles, including “Section 11102: Is It The Answer To Competitive Access? -- Examining The Varying Standards Applied By The Surface Transportation Board When It is Determining Whether To Grant Terminal Trackage Rights Access,” co-authored with Sandra L. Brown, 66 J. Transp. L. Logist. & Policy 333.

 

 

 

wmullins@bakerandmiller.com............................Direct Dial: (202) 663-7823