Spotlight: Richard Faulk

Richard O. Faulk is the Chair of the Litigation Department of

Gardere Wynne Sewell LLP, which maintains offices in Dallas, Houston, and Austin, Texas, as well as in Mexico City. He also leads the firm’s Climate Change Task Force and the firm’s Environmental Practice Group. Mr. Faulk concentrates his personal practice in complex environmental litigation, including class actions and “mass tort” cases with international impacts. He is a board-certified specialist in federal and state appellate practice, and has argued cases before numerous federal and state trial and appellate courts, including the U.S. Supreme Court. He is experienced and widely published on the complex problems raised by CERCLA litigation and the rights and remedies of persons dealing with contaminated properties. See e.g., There and Back Again: The Progression of Regression of Contribution Actions Under CERCLA, 18 Tulane Env. L.J. 323 (2005).

Mr. Faulk has published over 40 scholarly articles in his areas of practice, including intensive research in to the legal and scientific issues of global climate change and public nuisance litigation. See, e.g., A Lawyer’s Look at the Science of Global Climate Change, 44 World Climate Change Rept. 2 (2009); Lifting the Veil: Pressures Mount for Climate Change Disclosures, 22 Electricity J. 6 (2009); Premature Burial? The Resuscitation of Public Nuisance Litigation,24 Toxics L. Rptr. (2009), Alchemy in the Courtroom: The Transmutation of Public Nuisance Litigation, 2007 Mich. St. L. Rev. 941 (2008). The American Enterprise Institute has described his public nuisance articles as the “definitive summary” of the problems of public nuisance law expansion.

In December, 2009, Mr. Faulk attended and participated in the United Nations Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen, Denmark as a credentialed journalist for Thompson Reuters legal media. While in attendance and thereafter, he authored eleven columns analyzing the conference’s progress. He has since authored another studying the effect of the convocation on American economic and legal issues. The analytical columns are collected at http://works.bepress.com/richard_faulk/ He also serves on the Board of BNA’s Class Action Reporter and Expert Evidence Report, and was recently engaged as a monthly columnist on environmental issues for West Publishing.

His previous works in such areas as class actions and other mass torts, including international claims, have been prolific and influential. See, e. g., The Expanding Use of the Alien Tort Statute in International Human Rights Enforcement, 10 Class Action Rpt. 294 (2009); Armageddon Through Aggregation: The Use and Abuse of Class Actions in International Dispute Resolution, 10 MSU-DCL J. Int’l Law 205 (2001); Building a Better Mousetrap: A New Approach to Trying Mass Tort Cases, 29 Tex. Tech. L. Rev. 779 (1998).

Mr. Faulk received the William H. Burton Award for Legal Excellence in 2009 and 2003 at ceremonies in the Library of Congress. In 2004, he was honored with an invitation to address the National Academy of Sciences regarding the legal, regulatory, and scientific issues underlying the admissibility of scientific and medical evidence.

Mr. Faulk has been named as one of the most outstanding lawyers in Houston and in Texas by his peers in local and statewide surveys, and is rated one of America’s “Leading Lawyers for Business” and as a “Leading Lawyer in Environmental Law” by Chambers USA. He was selected as one of the “Best Lawyers in America” by Woodward/White Inc. in what is widely regarded as the preeminent referral guide to the legal profession in the United States.