Tracy Hester has been named director of the Environment, Energy and Natural Resources Center at the UH Law Center.
The UH adjunct professor has been a partner at Bracewell & Giuliani LLP for 16 years, leading the law firm’s Houston office environmental group as senior counsel.
“By joining the University of Houston Law Center faculty and directing the clinic, I’ll have a chance to focus on critical issues,” Hester said. “These issues include the production and regulation of energy and environmental protection in Houston, where we have the world’s leading talent and thinkers already working in the private sector, academia and environmental advocates.”
UH Law Center Dean Raymond Nimmer said that he thinks Hester is highly qualified for the job.
“Professor Hester is an acknowledged national expert in environmental law,” Nimmer said. “He brings both practical knowledge and intellectual power to his new position.”
Hester said that changes are needed and that he plans to bring recognition to the EENR Center.
“Frankly, the EENR Center needs to step out and get more attention for its work and people,” Hester said. “It’s a great institute and deserves more notice than it currently gets.”
Hester plans to achieve his set goals to attract great recognition to the center.
“I want to help build the EENR Center into a world-class forum for tackling environmental and energy challenges on both legal and policy fronts,” Hester said.
Nimmer said that he has similar expectations for Hester and the EENR Center.
“I expect him to expand the program and its impact on the local and national community,” Nimmer said. “Also, I expect him to increase our involvement with companies in the environmental law field.”
Nimmer anticipates the center, as a whole, will benefit from this decision.
“I expect that the program will be put on track to become one of the most renowned and effective in energy and environmental law and policy,” Nimmer said.
Hester became interested in teaching as a guest lecturer and said that he enjoyed it immensely. When a position opened, he took it.
“Serving as an adjunct was a great opportunity to combine my daily environmental legal practice with advanced theoretical thinking with students and other professors,” Hester said.
According to the Bracewell & Giuliani LLP Web site, Hester has dozens of law affiliations including bar associations in Texas, New York and Washington, D.C. He was elected into the American Law Institute in 2004.
Hester earned his bachelor’s degree with high honors from the University of Texas at Austin in 1983 and earned his J.D. from Columbia Law School in 1986.
