John J. Vay has more than 35 years of public and private sector experience in the areas of environmental, natural resources, water, energy, and utility law.  Mr. Vay represents clients in a wide variety of regulatory, transactional, and litigation matters at the local, regional, state, and federal levels.  He also provides mediation services and serves as a contract hearings examiner in contested proceedings.

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Mr. Vay, a 1984 graduate of St. Mary's University School of Law in San Antonio, began his legal career as a Staff Attorney for the Texas Department of Water Resources and the Texas Water Commission in Austin (predecessors to the current Texas Commission on Environmental Quality).  He later served as a Hearing Examiner for the Commission and was promoted to Assistant Chief Hearing Examiner.  Mr. Vay was subsequently appointed as the General Counsel of the Commission serving as the direct legal advisor to the agency's Commissioners and as the Director of Legal Services counseling the agency's Executive Director.

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Mr. Vay has represented and counseled numerous corporate, municipal and individual clients in matters before the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality (TCEQ), the Railroad Commission of Texas (RRC), the Texas Department of State Health Services (DSHS), the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (USACE), and various other regulatory agencies and governmental entities.  He also has represented clients in numerous business, real estate and transactional matters, and in civil litigation in state and federal district courts.  Mr. Vay is further qualified for appointment as an impartial third party (e.g., mediator) under Tex. Civ. Prac. & Rem. Code §154.052 and has served as a contract hearings examiner in contested proceedings before governmental bodies.

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Aside from his law practice, Mr. Vay previously served as a Special Agent for the U.S. Department of Justice, Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), where he graduated from the FBI Academy in Quantico, Virginia, and served in Seattle and Richland, Washington.  Mr. Vay was formerly appointed and publicly elected to the Board of Directors of the Lost Creek Municipal Utility District in Travis County, Texas.
 

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