J. Michael Cavanaugh practices commercial law as a partner of Holland & Knight LLP in Washington DC.  His clients and projects are focused in electric power, water, transportation and telecommunications infrastructure, in the U.S. and abroad.  He has represented parties on a number of large privatization and public-private partnership transactions, including sales of nuclear power plants, development of new conventional and renewable power generation facilities and transmission lines, marine ports and terminals.  In the structured finance area, he has assisted clients with financing for ships and railway equipment and railroad rights-of-way, and he has handled merger and acquisition transactions for railroads and international ocean shipping lines.  In addition to work in the USA, Mike has served on client projects in more than 30 countries worldwide, in Latin America, Europe, Africa, the Middle East, Asia, the South Pacific and Australia.

Mike has been active in teaching law in many settings.  He served as an adjunct professor at George Mason International School of Law (1997-2005) teaching International Commercial Law, and as a lecturer at the Rwanda Institute of Legal Practice and Development (2014) teaching privatization law.  He has provided individual classes and seminars at various academic and government institutions, and actively teaches CLE courses on financing and development law topics and legal writing.  Mike is a graduate of The Ohio State University (B.S. Political Science 1971) and Stanford Law School (J.D. 1974).  He serves on various corporate and non-profit advisory boards.