Patricia Carls

Trish Carls is one of the founding partners of the Firm, which was established in 1996. Carls is an experienced practitioner with a diverse background in administrative law, environmental law, governmental entity law, health care law, and water law.

Carls has worked in both the public and private sectors. She served as a staff attorney for the Texas Water Commission (now the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality), concentrating on water rights, and as in-house environmental counsel to the Lower Colorado River Authority, concentrating on environmental regulatory issues for LCRA’s electric, natural gas, and water utilities. In private practice, Carls was a member of the environmental law section of Brown McCarroll & Oaks Hartline (now Brown McCarroll, LLP), where she focused on hazardous waste permitting and regulatory compliance in the refining and chemical industries. She also worked on the first high speed rail initiative in Texas.

Since 1996, Carls has served as either City Attorney or special counsel to several central Texas cities, advising her clients on all aspects of municipal law ranging from annexation to zoning. She has successfully guided her clients through phenomenal growth in central Texas, and has negotiated and drafted complex contracts for major economic development projects involving public-private partnerships, multi-million dollar utility agreements, smart growth zoning initiatives, and conservation subdivision ordinances. She also has experience in negotiating and drafting wholesale and retail water and wastewater utility agreements.

Carls continues to work in the area of water law with an emphasis in groundwater law. She provides general legal counseling to groundwater districts on matters pertaining to Open Meetings Act and Public Information Act compliance, as well as specialized counseling related to rule making, elections, permitting and enforcement, contested case hearings, and other services for these specialized districts. Carls also represents entities seeking to obtain production and transportation permits from groundwater districts by providing legal counseling from the permit application stage through the permit issuance stage, including representation in a contested case hearing or mediated permitting process. She also represents clients who want to participate in revising a district’s Management Plan or rules, and setting the Desired Future Condition (including appeals) for the relevant aquifers in the district and corresponding groundwater management area.

Carls’ ability to master the intricacies of complex governmental regulations has also led her to expand her practice to the health care industry, where she focuses on fraud, abuse, Stark law, antitrust, and contract drafting for various health care providers.

Carls received her Doctor of Jurisprudence in 1985 from the University of Texas School of Law in Austin, Texas, and her Bachelor of Arts in Economics and English with High Honors from Loyola University in New Orleans, Louisiana, in 1982.

Carls provides her clients with unique insights resulting from her broad-based experience. She has a keen eye for detail and is able to manage complex transactions. She is efficient, realistic and practical, and works tirelessly to produce the most positive results for her clients.