Shareholder
Austin
Licensed to Practice Law in Texas
E-mail:
eopiela@ericopiela.com
Phone: 512.791.6336
Eric Opiela was Committee
Director and Counsel for the Texas House of Representatives
Urban Affairs Committee during the 78th Texas Legislature,
where he led landmark reforms to Texas’ housing and
community development programs. Recognized for his
extensive knowledge in housing, municipal, and local
government law, he was asked to return to the Capitol
during the 79th Texas Legislature as General Counsel for
the Texas House Urban Affairs Committee. In 2006 he served
on Texas’s Housing Private Activity Bond Task Force. He has
represented numerous developers before the Texas Department
of Housing and Community Affairs, and assisted clients in
tax credit, private activity bond, and HOME transactions
from application to closing with the nation’s leading
bond/credit purchasers and syndicators.
Eric is a published scholar in the area of Texas water law,
and has written and presented extensively in opposition to
the outdated Rule of Capture, which governs Texas
groundwater law, and threatens the vitality of rural Texas
in the face of extensive pumping by large metropolitan
cities. He has also represented landowners/developers in
property tax litigation, recovering over $20 million in
valuation reductions for his clients.
Eric graduated Phi Beta Kappa from the University of Texas
at Austin, where he was the student body vice-president and
chairman of the University of Texas System Student Advisory
Council. He earned his law degree from the University of
Texas School of Law, where he was Editor-in-Chief of The
American Journal of Criminal Law, one of the nation’s top
two scholarly journals dedicated to criminal justice. After
law school, he clerked for The Honorable Mary Ellen Coster
Williams, United States Court of Federal Claims in
Washington, DC.
Eric has represented a wide variety of clients, including
cities, governmental districts, associations, and
developers in both litigation, and administrative practice.
In addition to his law practice, Eric served as Executive
Director of the Republican Party of Texas for the past two
years.