Alfred R. Herrera - Austin, TX

Alfred R. Herrera is the founder of Herrera Law & Associates and focuses his practice on administrative law in the public-utility arena - electric, gas, water/wastewater, landline and wireless communications. He has served as lead counsel in excess of one hundred contested proceedings before the Public Utility Commission of Texas and the Railroad Commission of Texas primarily representing municipalities in rate cases and landowners in CCN cases. He has handled numerous appeals to the Texas Courts of Appeals and the Texas Supreme Court. He is Board certified in Administrative Law. Member: State Bar of Texas; Public Utility Law Section; and Austin Bar Association. Serves on the Administrative Law Advisory Commission for the Texas Board of Legal Specialization. Member of the Texas Bar College.

Mr. Herrera has extensive experience in the regulatory arena regarding electric utilities, gas utilities, municipally-owned electric and water/wastewater utilities, landline telecommunications companies, wireless communications companies, and cable companies.

Mr. Herrera's practice focuses on representing municipalities, electric and water municipally owned utilities, and other corporate entities in proceedings before the Public Utility Commission of Texas, the Railroad Commission of Texas, and the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality, as well as in the legislative process, and appeals of agency orders to the court system. Mr. Herrera also advises cities in matters affecting use of their right of ways and other municipally owned facilities, including negotiating pole-attachment agreements, review of purchase power agreements, and other complex contract negotiations. Additionally, Mr. Herrera represents private and public clients in transmission-line proceedings before the PUC.

Mr. Herrera has represented municipalities in almost every major rate case filed by an electric utility with the PUCT over the past 15 years and in rate proceedings filed by the major gas utilities in Texas before the Railroad Commission of Texas.

Mr. Herrera represented a municipally-owned utility in a seminal case before the PUC regarding the municipally owned utility's rights under the Public Utility Regulatory Act to control access to its facilities, including its utility poles, and represented the City of Austin, the City of Dallas, and the City of Houston in separate complaints brought by small-cell companies seeking to use the cities' right of ways under Chapter 283 of the Local Government Code and advises municipalities across the state in their rights and obligations with regard to use of a city's public rights of way.

Mr. Herrera served as lead counsel for MCI, Inc., for over 15 years, participating in numerous rate proceedings and interconnection-agreement negotiations and arbitrations, and played a key role in the legislative and regulatory arenas to open the telecommunications market to competition, including the telecommunications market in Mexico, serving on MCI's formative team that crafted the regulatory framework for deregulation of the telecommunications market in Mexico.

Mr. Herrera is a frequent speaker on municipal law and electric, water/wastewater, electric, and gas-utility law.

Mr. Herrera is a Member of the State Bar of Texas; Public Utility Law Section of the Bar; and the Austin Bar Association. He serves on the State Bar of Texas's Administrative Advisory Commission for the Texas Board of Legal Specialization and is a Member of the Texas Bar College. Mr. Herrera obtained a B.A. in American History from the George Washington University and his Doctor of Jurisprudence degree from the University of Texas School of Law.