Laura's air quality experience includes advising and representing entities on a broad range of permitting, compliance, and policy issues. She has represented chemical manufacturing operations, electric utilities, petroleum refineries, oil and gas pipelines and terminal facilities, alternative/renewable energy operations including solar energy projects, landfills and waste combustors, steel manufacturing facilities, mining operations, and other facility types regarding federal and state permitting and compliance issues.

Her comprehensive NSR and Title V permitting practice includes counseling on the varied and often complex issues associated with federal NSR (prevention of significant deterioration/PSD and nonattainment) and Title V permitting, including single source/aggregation analyses to determine the applicability of those programs. Laura assists clients with Title V permitting, including counsel regarding required reasonable inquiry, deviation reporting, and compliance certification. She also assists with MACT/NESHAP and NSPS standard compliance and responding to Section 114 requests.

Laura advises clients regarding compliance audits and disclosing violations pursuant to Environmental Protection Agency and state audit programs, including the Texas Environmental, Health & Safety Audit Privilege Act. She also provides counsel and representation on state, local, and federal administrative and civil enforcement cases, including allegations that the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality refers to the Texas Attorney General for civil enforcement. Laura represents regulated entities in administrative hearings. She has represented individual entities and trade associations on federal and state policy issues and provides counsel regarding fire prevention requirements and equivalency determinations. 

She currently co-chairs the firm’s Air Practice Group. 

Before entering private practice, Laura served as an assistant attorney general in the Natural Resources Division of the Office of the Attorney General of Texas. She also worked for the Texas Natural Resource Conservation Commission (now the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality or TCEQ), where she rose from the position of a staff attorney in the Air Quality Section to senior attorney. 

Upon graduation from law school, Laura served as a judge advocate in the United States Air Force. As a judge advocate, she acquired extensive litigation experience prosecuting military criminal trials by court-martial and representing the Air Force in administrative hearings and also provided counsel on environmental issues and assistance with environmental compliance audits at various Air Force bases.

She previously served as a member of the State Bar of Texas Public and Administrative Law Council. She studied piano performance at the Oberlin Conservatory of Music before transferring to Duke University.