Article Detail
Justin Wilson, '70, elected Tennessee State Comptroller
Release Date: Jan 16, 2009
Wilson has spent much of his legal career as a partner at Waller Lansden Dortch & Davis, where he focused his practice on environmental and energy matters and government relations, as well as trust and estate planning and charitable organizations. He also serves on Vanderbilt's law faculty as an adjunct professor, teaching estate taxation and professional responsibility.
Wilson previously served as deputy governor for policy to former Tennessee Governor Don Sundquist and as the governor's chief policy advisor and as commissioner of the Tennessee Department of Environment and Conservation. In 2002, Tennessee's 54th state park - a 300-mile trail across the state and the land surrounding the trail - was named the Justin P. Wilson Cumberland Trail State Park in recognition of his "conservation and environmental contributions to the State of Tennessee."
He had practiced law as a member of Waller Lansden from 1976 to 1996. After serving in the Sundquist administration from 1996 to 2003, he returned to Waller as a member of the firm.
A noted tax expert, Professor Wilson served as chairman of the Nashville Power Board, which governs Nashville Electric Service, the nation's eleventh largest public power distributor. He is a member of the Environmental Financial Advisory Board of the United States Environmental Protection Agency, which provides advice and analysis to EPA's administrator on paying for the growing costs of environmental protection and how to increase investment in environmental infrastructure through the leveraging of public and private resources.
He is also on the executive committee of the board of trustees of Watkins College and the executive committee of the Tennessee Bar Association's committee on environment.
