Attorneys

A business man himself, John T. Wright specializes in nonprofit governance, regulator/administrative law, government relations, and entertainment law. He focuses his practice on representing rural electric cooperative clients in corporate and transactional matters, as well as advocating for them before the Public Utility Commission of Texas (PUCT) and in government relations matters at the Texas Legislature. Mr. Wright regularly handles a range of corporate and transactional matters, including advising nonprofit corporations and their boards on nonprofit governance practices, commercial contract negotiations, electrical service contracts, real estate matters, and construction and development agreements for electric energy facilities. Matters involving the PUCT have included the licensing of transmission facilities, contested case hearings, rulemaking proceedings and acting as a government liaison during emergency events or as needed.

Mr. Wright also practices entertainment law, and before embarking on a career in law, he gained extensive experience in the promotion, booking, management, and production aspects of the industry. Mr. Wright has worked on various transactional matters in the music industry including publishing agreements, record agreements, live performance agreements, and licensing agreements. Mr. Wright is also Secretary of the Independent Music Alliance, a trade association of artists and music industry professionals based in Austin, Texas.

Mr. Wright grew up in rural East Texas on a farm and was actively engaged as a young adult in his family’s sand mining operation established by his great grandfather and grandfather in 1948. He remains involved as a shareholder in the family business. His work with the family business over the years has afforded him a comprehensive understanding of issues faced by small businesses in rural areas and has allowed him the opportunity to work on a variety of legal issues concerning business and agricultural matters.

Russell Parish is a farm and ranch owner, who brings vast experience as a “deal lawyer” and advisor to corporate executives. He has provided broad general counsel, business law, compliance, litigation-avoidance and dispute-resolution advice to various executive teams and business units, while serving as a member of several in-house legal departments.

Mr. Parish holds a combined general counsel experience of more than a decade with three major Texas companies, including a Fortune 500 forest-products and real estate conglomerate with roots in Diboll, TX; a National Class 1 Railroad with headquarters in North Texas; and closely-held businesses engaged in freight hauling/logistics, agriculture and resource management.

Mr. Parish held both associate and senior counsel positions in his career with two international law firms in the Austin and San Antonio areas, who are each regularly recognized as an Am Law 100 firm. His large firm practice included handling real estate transactional work, corporate/transactions work, and energy law for rural electric cooperatives in East Texas and Central Texas, along with small businesses and high-net-worth individuals, as well as a national cable-broadband media provider.

His transactional legal expertise includes drafting, reviewing and negotiation of an array of different types of commercial contracts, along with electric energy service and facilities construction agreements, leases (including technology data-center leases), easements, restrictive covenants, NDAs, PSAs, Services Agreements, rail-trackage rights agreements, solar power PV leases and distributed generation agreements, among other complex agreements (such as Indemnity and Dispute-resolution clauses related to major Asset Purchase and Entity Purchase deals).

Mr. Parish grew up in a multifaceted agribusiness environment (that included farms and ranches in various parts of Texas, New Mexico, Oklahoma and Kansas), which he has maintained interests in, and as an attorney, he has handled land deals and other agriculture law issues for family members in West Texas and Central Texas.