Brian Sledge
Title: Managing Partner
Contact: (512)579-3601 bsledge@sledgelaw.com
NWSA Involvement: Affiliate Member
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Bio:
Brian Sledge is the managing partner at the firm, and is both a registered lobbyist in Texas and a practicing attorney. Brian’s legislative and regulatory practice as a lobbyist involves a broad and diverse array of public policy matters before the Texas Legislature, various state agencies, and local governments. His law practice focuses primarily on water, environmental, utilities, and administrative law, and local government matters involving special districts, cities, counties, and other political subdivisions.
Brian has been recognized by Capitol Insider’s Texas Lobby Power Rankings as one of the top lobbyists in Texas. He is a prolific author and frequent speaker on issues involving the Texas Legislature, and on legal matters regarding water, solid waste, mining, utilities and municipal issues. Because of his extensive work experience as a lobbyist, water lawyer, attorney for the Texas Legislature, and research director for the Texas Water Development Board, Brian is perhaps most well-known for his work at the Texas Capitol on water policy issues, where his counsel is regularly sought as an architect of much of the state’s current water planning, regulatory, and water infrastructure financing statutes. He is invited frequently to testify before committees of the Senate and House of Representatives.
Prior to founding the firm in 2013, Brian was a partner in a major Austin law firm with the largest group of water, environmental, and utilities attorneys in Texas, where he practiced for almost a decade and a half and chaired its legislative practice group. Prior to entering private practice, Brian was Director of Research at the Texas Water Development Board where he performed legislative and other intergovernmental relations work for the agency and managed its research division. Before that, he served in numerous positions as an attorney for the Texas Legislature, including General Counsel and Chief Clerk of the House Committee on Natural Resources, General Counsel for the House Joint Interim Committee on TNRCC Funding, and lead staff for the House of Representatives on the Joint Senate/House Committee on Water Resources Development and Management.
Brian earned his B.A. from Texas A & M University and J.D. from the University of Houston Law Center. Brian is a native of Mesquite, Texas, and currently lives in Austin where he enjoys spending time with his wife and kids and on travel, sports, and outdoor adventures.
Organizational
Overview:
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Organization Type: Law Firm
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Services Provided:
The SledgeLaw Group is an Austin-based law firm with a legal practice focused on legislative, environmental, administrative, and utilities law, with a specific emphasis on water-related matters. The firm represents governmental, corporate, and individual clients across Texas on a broad range of issues, including regulatory compliance and enforcement, environmental permitting, water resource supply and planning, and transactional issues involving local, state, and federal regulations.
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The firm’s expertise in water law is founded on its attorneys’ extensive work on water planning and management, water supply and water quality projects, water resource development and transactions, and permitting, enforcement, and contested matters for all types of water uses. SledgeLaw’s attorneys routinely speak on important water law issues across the state and nation, and author articles for publication.
The firm’s governmental relations team is well-known for its work at the Texas Capitol with a legislative and lobbying practice that encompasses a wide variety of public policy matters. Its services also include state agency lobbying, with a particular focus on the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality, the Texas Water Development Board, the Texas Public Utility Commission, and the Texas General Land Office.