Overview
Max is a member of the firm's Environmental & Natural Resources Practice Group. His experience includes both transactional counsel and litigation representation. Using his extensive knowledge in environmental, natural resources, energy, and land-use law, he helps businesses resolve disputes regarding federal, state, and local regulations. The industries of Max's clients include manufacturing, renewable energy, real estate development, petroleum, auto, forestry, and forest products.
Max regularly works with regulatory agencies in several states to address complex hazardous waste and air and water pollution matters. His practice background includes:
- Purchase, sale, remediation, and repurposing of environmentally impacted industrial properties
- Environmental agency claims, agency enforced remedial and removal actions under Superfund and RCRA and voluntary clean ups
- Private cost recovery lawsuits and citizen suits
- Environmental permits
- Sustainability advice
Get To Know
Faithful Friends is a community-based program that matches vulnerable children aged six to nine with mentors for a year or more. Max met the program's founder over two decades ago and ended up joining the Faithful Friends board in 2018. After becoming more knowledgeable about the program, Max and his wife Lori signed up to train to be mentors late last summer, and were matched shortly after.
“It was friendship at first sight,” recalls Max after meeting their young mentee. Born premature at just 1.5 pounds, their now eight-year-old friend remains small in stature but has grown into a vivacious personality. She is articulate, reads tremendously well, and has a loving home with her grandmother. One thing that her family felt would be beneficial to her was a consistent and positive male presence.
Max, Lori, and their mentee get together on a weekly basis to just live life and have fun. Playing games, walking the dog, going to bible study, and trips to the grocery store are sprinkled with special outings like taking in a play at the Northwest Children’s Theater. The goal isn’t to buy children in the program a lot of gifts and make every outing spectacular. Rather, mentors like Max and Lori provide a consistent and steady influence on their mentee's life, reinforcing the importance of responsibility, school, family, and making good life choices. Max shared, “The most important thing is that we show up when we say we will, and never add any disappointment to her life.”
When kids graduate from the Faithful Friends program, usually sometime after 10 years old, the hope is that the friendship continues beyond the agreed upon term of the mentorship. For Max and Lori, a long-term relationship with their new friend is something they are looking forward to building.
Featured Representative Matters
Environmental Remediation and Purchase of Railcar Facility
Superfund
Conversion of Brownfields
Automobile Dealerships
Clean Water Act
EPA
Disposal Site
Dispensing Properties
Federal & State Permitting
Renewable Energy
Lacey Act Compliance
TSCA Wastes
Crane Preserve
Featured Work
Tonkon Torp Helps Albina Head Start Purchase Property for Community Cornerstone
Attorneys from Tonkon Torp’s Real Estate & Land Use Practice Group are celebrating a successful real estate purchase for pro bono client Albina Head Start (AHS). For more than 40 years, AHS has leased space at a former church building in NE Portland for its Tina Clegg Center. The Center, a community pillar for one of Portland’s historic communities of color, houses both a Head Start program serving 60 low-income families and AHS administrative offices that coordinate and provide services for numerous additional families.
Tonkon Torp Helps Columbia Land Trust Establish Sandhill Crane Habitat Preserve
Attorneys from Tonkon Torp’s real estate and land use, and environmental and natural resources teams represented the Columbia Land Trust in negotiating and completing the transfer of property for a habitat preserve. Find details and more featured cases here.
Tonkon Torp Finds Solution to Property Purchase Dilemma
Tonkon Torp attorneys Owen Blank and Max Miller represented the buyer in a recent purchase of Portland area property that was previously the site of a gas station and had contaminated soil that presented potential liability and development risk issues.
Community Involvement & Activities
Faithful Friends PDX
2017-Present, Board Member
1000 Friends of Oregon
Past Cooperating Attorney
Friends of the Children
Past Mamber, Endowment Committee
The Right Brain Initiative
2009-2015, Governing Committee
2011-2013, Chair, Development Committee
2010-2012, Secretary
City of Portland
2011-2013, Mayor's Economic Cabinet
MetroArts, Inc.
2000-2014, Secretary
Business for Culture and the Arts
2004-2010, Board Member
2008-2010, Board Chair
Oregon Episcopal School
1997-1999, Chair, Alumni Board
1997-1999, Board of Trustees
Regional Arts and Cultural Council
2009-2015, Board Member, Secretary, Vice Chair, Nominating Committee
West Coast Chamber Orchestra
1984-1989, Board Member
1986-1989, Chair
Professional Memberships
Member, Real Estate & Land Use, Environmental & Natural Resources, and Sustainable Future Sections
Past Treasurer, Sustainable Future Section
Member (2015-2017), Sustainable Future Section Executive Committee
Past Chair, Public Service and Information Committee
Past Chair, Environmental & Natural Resources Section
Past Member, Sustainability Task Force
Co-Editor, Environmental and Natural Resources Law (Oregon CLE 2002)
Editor (1994-1997), Oregon Environmental and Natural Resources Outlook
American Bar Association
Natural Resources, Energy and Environment Section
Real Property Section
Multnomah Bar Association
Oregon Lawyers for a Sustainable Future
Green Team Task Force
Awards & Recognition
Recent News
Four Tonkon Torp Attorneys Earn Portland Lawyer of the Year Honor
Best Lawyers in America® Includes 49 Tonkon Torp Attorneys on 2021 List
Chambers USA Names 20 Tonkon Torp Attorneys in 2020 Ranking
2020 List for Best Lawyers in America® Includes 48 Tonkon Torp Attorneys
Chambers USA Names 23 Tonkon Torp Attorneys in 2019 Ranking
Tonkon Torp Sponsors Wild Splendor 2018
Tonkon Torp Sponsors Faithful Friends Event
Best Lawyers in America® Names 51 Tonkon Torp Attorneys to 2019 List
Chambers USA Names 20 Tonkon Torp Attorneys as Leaders in Their Field
Max Miller Joins Board of Directors of Faithful Friends Mentoring Program
Recent Alerts
Oregon Senate Passes Brownfields Land Bank Bill
Supreme Court Allows Superfund Cleanup Cost Recovery
Publications & Presentations
"Determining Who Pays for Environmental Remediation: Legal and Technical Issues," 22nd Annual Superfund in Oregon Conference, October 2016
"What Does the Papal Encyclical, Laudato Si', Say to Lawyers?," The Long View, Oregon State Bar Sustainable Future Section, Summer 2015
"Determining Who Pays for Contaminated Sediment Cleanup," Cascade Luncheon, Northwest Environmental Business Council, June 2015
"The Portland Harbor Superfund Site," Multnomah Bar Association, November 2014
"Decker v. NEDC," Environmental & Natural Resources Law Section E-Outlook, Oregon State Bar, April 2013
"Tax Credit May Give Wind Energy a Gust," Daily Journal of Commerce, January 2013
"Encouraging Lawyers to Adopt Sustainability Goals," Sustainability: The Journal of Record, October 2011