Ms. Collier-Brown is senior counsel in the Austin office of Locke Lord LLP where she is a regulatory and administrative litigation attorney in the areas of public utilities, energy, water, and general administrative law. Ms. Collier-Brown serves clients before the Public Utility Commission of Texas (PUC), Railroad Commission of Texas, and the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC). In her PUC practice, she represents electric utilities, water utilities, renewable energy generators, retail electric providers, and other clients in a broad range of manners, including rate applications, administrative litigation, regulatory compliance, enforcement, Certificate of Convenience and Necessity (CCN) proceedings, and rulemakings. On the federal energy level, Ms. Collier-Brown has advised electric utilities and generation companies on compliance with NERC reliability standards, competition-related issues in RTO and ISO markets, and Open Access Transmission Tariffs compliance manners at FERC. In the area of gas utility regulation, she represents midstream pipeline companies and natural gas utilities in permitting, compliance, rate-selling and litigation manners before the Railroad Commission of Texas (the state’s principal oil and gas regulatory authority). Ms. Collier- Brown has also advised utility clients on smart grid policy, wireless licenses and pole attachment issues at the Federal Communications Commission. She has had extensive experience with the implementation of Senate Bill 7, the 1999 legislation introducing retail competition in the Texas electric market.
 

Jackson Walker, LLP
Mr. Dougal represents a diverse group of clients in complex permitting and water matters, including data centers and other technology companies, power generation companies, real estate developers and special districts. He is also active in water quality and wetlands issues where he represents energy companies, developers and agricultural operators in Clean Water Act permit and compliance matters. As a recognized authority on emerging water law issues, Mr. Dougal is frequently sought after to speak at bar and continuing legal education seminars. He is the author of two chapters in the treatise on Texas water law, The Essentials of Texas Water Resources. Mr. Dougal has a special interest in solving water supply issues for clients, including permitting of groundwater, contracting with others for new water supplies, conveying or reserving water rights, or reusing treated wastewater. Mr. Dougal is board certified in Administrative Law by the Texas Board of Legal Specialization. He is also a Texas licensed Professional Engineer (inactive).

Fancher Legal, PLLC, in Frisco
Ms. Fancher has extensive experience in representing clients on water and other legal matters across the State of Texas. She represents a diverse array of clients – from water districts to landowners and private companies – and therefore has a broad perspective that benefits her clients. After practicing in Austin for a number of years, Ms. Fancher simultaneously founded Fancher Legal, PLLC, and relocated with her family to the North Texas area where she was raised. She is a sixth generation Texan and is fortunate to have the opportunity to represent clients with interests and values similar to those that she was raised with.

Ms. Sahs, an honors graduate of the University of Texas School of Law, operates a solo practice under the name Mary K. Sahs, P.C. For more than 30 years, she has focused her practice on the areas of water and environmental law. She served as a hearings examiner and then as the public interest counsel at the Texas Water Commission. Later, she was an associate with Gardere & Wynne, L.L.P. From there, she started her own rm in 1995. Ms. Sahs has written and spoken extensively on water and environmental issues. She is the managing editor of Essentials of Texas Water Resources, currently in its sixth edition. She was selected by her peers for inclusion in Woodward/White, Inc.’s 2009 through 2020 editions of The Best Lawyers in America®, for her work in the practice area of Water Law and has been a member of the College of the State Bar of Texas since 2001 and a fellow since 2011.
 

Mr. Sledge is the managing partner at the rm, Sledge Law Group, PLLC, and is both a registered lobbyist in Texas and a practicing attorney. Mr. Sledge’s legislative and regulatory practice as a lobbyist involves a broad and diverse array of public policy manners 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 manners involving special districts, cities, counties, and other political subdivisions. Mr. Sledge 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 manners 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, Mr. Sledge 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 nancing statutes. He is invited frequently to testify before committees of the Senate and House of Representatives. Mr. Sledge 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.
 

Mr. Strickland is a water project and finance attorney in Holland & Knight’s Austin and Los Angeles offices. His clients include U.S.-based and multinational water companies and  financial institutions that develop and manage water resources and infrastructure. He has been involved in many of the largest and most significant water development projects in the United States for the past 20 years, across multiple states and regions, with a strong focus on California, Texas and the West. Mr. Strickland frequently advises international companies pursuing business opportunities within the U.S. His clients have included companies based in North America, Europe, the Middle East and North Africa (MENA), Asia and Australia. He has participated in select projects located outside the U.S. Mr. Strickland is a regular writer and speaker on water resources and the private sector. He has been quoted by numerous media, including Bloomberg, Reuters, Al Jazeera, Debtwire, Circle of Blue and Global Water Intelligence, for which he also serves as the U.S. legal columnist. Earlier in his career, Mr. Strickland served as a captain and judge advocate in the U.S. Marine Corps, where he handled water right manners for the western U.S. and the U.S. Department of Defense (DOD) utilities privatization initiative.