Andrew Sher

Andrew Sher born Durban, Republic of South Africa, 1969; admitted to bar, 1994, Texas; 1995, Colorado; and 1996-2011, U.S. District Courts, Southern District of Texas; Western District of Texas; Northern District of Texas; Eastern District of Texas; and 2004, U.S. Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit. Received 1991, B.B.A., Petroleum Land Management, The University of Texas at Austin and 1993, J.D., The University of Houston Law Center. Life Fellow, Texas Bar Foundation; Member, State Bar of Texas, Colorado Bar Association, American Bar Association, Houston Bar Association, Fort Bend County Bar Association, American Association for Justice, Texas Trial Lawyers Association, and Houston Trial Lawyers Association.

For more than 18 years, Mr. Sher has been practicing in the area of environmental, personal injury and civil trial litigation representing clients in federal and state courts located in Texas, New Mexico, California, Colorado, Illinois, Pennsylvania, Oklahoma and other states. Mr. Sher is a Martindale Hubbell AV® Preeminent™* Peer Review Rated Attorney with exceptional experience and capabilities. After graduating from the University of Texas at Austin in 1991 and obtaining his J.D. from the University of Houston Law Center in 1993, Mr. Sher spent ten years actively litigating cases with a nationally recognized civil trial law firm before founding The Sher Law Firm, PLLC, in 2003. Mr. Sher founded his law firm on the belief that he could establish "a small law firm by choice, with big-firm experience and capabilities." Since its inception, the firm has been actively engaged in prosecuting a wide variety of cases involving catastrophic personal injuries, dangerous drugs and products, environmental pollution claims, toxic exposure injuries, oil & gas lease and royalty disputes, real estate fraud, business, commercial and breach of contract torts, and eminent domain, right-of-way, easement and water rights disputes.

Mr. Sher was an invited speaker at the first annual Clear Gold Summit in September, 1999 concerning private property rights and surface and groundwater resources in the State of Texas. The Clear Gold Summit, an invitation only event, launched the debate on Water in Texas – A Commodity for the 21st Century and was attended by selected representatives with experience and expertise involving water issues from across the State. In the fall of 1999, Mr. Sher was also designated Special Assistant Attorney General by Attorney General Patricia A. Madrid for the purpose of litigating environmental enforcement actions on behalf of the State of New Mexico. In 2008, the Texas Bar Foundation Board of Trustees elected Mr. Sher to serve as a Life Fellow to the Texas Bar Foundation "in recognition of service and devotion to the highest traditions of the Bar." Mr. Sher has also regularly been selected for inclusion as a Super Lawyer (2012) by Thomson Reuters as published in Texas Monthly for "Environmental Litigation" and as one of Houston's Top Lawyers by H-Texas Magazine from 2010 through 2012.

Environmental law is a practice with an interdisciplinary bent that calls for the comprehension of issues that are not new to The Sher Law Firm. "Our background makes us particularly aware of the technical and economic feasibility of complex litigation. Technical and economic feasibilities are generally not explained or defined in statutes and the understanding of such issues can only be acquired after years of experience and objective willingness to listen and learn from other disciplines. Mr. Sher and his law firm have actively engaged in prosecuting cost recovery actions, Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act ("CERCLA") and Texas Solid Waste Disposal Act ("SWDA") claims, environmental crimes, natural resource damage, pipeline leaks and releases, natural resource damage actions, and other property damage actions caused by pollution, including aquifer contamination cases, against oil and gas production and transportation companies and other corporations whose operations and/or failures have contaminated the surface, subsurface, and groundwater resources of various individual and governmental clients. In the course of this litigation experience, and during the development of these contamination cases, depositions of key company personnel and environmental experts have been taken, documenting the practices that cause surface and groundwater contamination. For example, the depositions of pipeline technicians, pipeline controllers, incident commanders, pumpers, foremen, supervisors, superintendents, regional managers, engineers, environmental engineers, and even the presidents and chief executive officers of companies and corporations document the manner in which businesses have conducted field operations throughout the United States and how those operations have actually caused surface and groundwater contamination and ultimately the destruction of other natural resources.

The Sher Law Firm frequently associates with other national firms as outside counsel, forming a seamless team to further the interest of large clients with environmental legal issues nationwide. The joining together of these diverse national trial practices has the ability to form approaches and strategies which are unique and will result in the successful conclusion of numerous and varying types of environmental litigation. There is a substantial breadth of expertise available to clients of the Firm. "We are very selective about our cases, which means more personal service and better results for our clients."