Overview

Erin Girard is a land use and zoning attorney with significant experience in securing approvals on a wide range of complex commercial, institutional, and mixed-use projects in Maryland.

Thoughtful and dedicated, Erin connects with her clients by treating their challenges as her own. She is a strong communicator who can talk through any issue while moving toward achieving her clients’ ultimate goals.

For more than two decades, Erin has helped clients – including developers, commercial property owners, nonprofit organizations, religious, and educational institutions, as well as individual landowners – navigate the complexities of land use matters. She works closely with her clients and the relevant government authorities to address a variety of legal and regulatory issues before they lead to costly delays.

Erin represents and advises clients in all aspects of land use law, including regulatory approvals and permitting and licensing, from planning through post-construction. Her practice spans due diligence review, zoning entitlements, rezoning, variances, special exceptions/conditional uses, subdivision approvals, historic preservation, annexations, condemnation and abandonment, master plan development and implementation, and other land use issues.

Erin also provides counsel on green development, including tree protection and stormwater management, and post-construction issues such as traffic mitigation.

Erin handles all aspects of the regulatory permitting and licensing processes, including administrative appeals. She was lead counsel in two frequently cited reported Maryland cases: Brandywine Senior Living at Potomac LLC v. Paul and Concerned Citizens of Cloverly v. Montgomery County Planning Board. She represents clients before government authorities in Montgomery County and the jurisdictions of Rockville, Gaithersburg, Kensington, and Takoma Park, in addition to Maryland state courts.

Erin is a graduate of the Urban Land Institute’s Regional Land Use Leadership Institute, has served on the Washington Regional Advisory Board for ULI, and was a member of ULI’s national Public Development and Infrastructure Council.

When not working or watching one of her four children play lacrosse, Erin enjoys planning her family’s next vacation and traveling.

Honors and awards

• Named “Lawyer of the Year” by Best Lawyers: Municipal Law, Washington, D.C. (2025)
• Listed in Best Lawyers in America: Real Estate Law (2023-present), Municipal Law (2024), and Land Use and Zoning Law (2021-2022)
• Listed in Chambers USA Real Estate: Land Use (2023-present)

Professional memberships

• Arts and Humanities Council of Montgomery County (Former Board Member)
• Maryland State Bar Association (Member)
• Urban Land Institute (National Public Development and Infrastructure Council Member; Washington Regional Advisory Board Member)

Reported Decisions

• Brandywine Senior Living at Potomac LLC v. Paul, 237 Md. App. 195 (2018)
• Concerned Citizens of Cloverly v. Montgomery County Planning Board, 254 Md. App. 575 (2022)