CONGRATULATIONS TO BRAUN & GRESHAM

Braun & Associates is now Braun & Gresham, PLLC. Cassie Gresham, left. David Braun, also co-founder of Plateau Land & Wildlife Management, right.

Congratulations to our friends at Braun & Associates. Cassie Gresham is now a partner and the firm is now Braun & Gresham, PLLC.

Says David Braun, also co-founder of Plateau Land & Wildlife Management: “I started Braun & Associates in 2000 to provide legal counsel and practical advice for owners of rural property nationwide. Today, I could not be more proud to share the firm name with Cassie Gresham, a lawyer who has proved herself absolutely dedicated to serving the needs and protecting the rights of landowners.”

Cassie, who joined Braun & Associates in 2004, played a key role in bringing about last year’s historic Dahlstrom Ranch conservation easement in Hays County, a rare collaboration between a private landowner, a county, a federal agency, and a city to protect drinking water and provide public open space. She oversees the firm’s unique Ecological Laboratory program which arranges partnerships between rural landowners and research universities. Cassie also leads the firm’s lobbying practice where she has worked on significant legislation for clients and on three successful bond-election campaigns which raised more than $100 million for central Texas open space, parks and water quality. Along with other members of the Braun & Gresham litigation team, Cassie is actively representing landowners across Texas threatened by proposed CREZ transmission lines.

Prior to joining Braun & Associates, Cassie served on the staff of Texas Lieutenant Governor Bill Ratliff. She is a graduate of the University of Texas School of Law, where she served as Co-Editor-in-Chief for the State Bar of Texas Environmental Law Journal. She was also a Truman Scholar during her undergraduate career at the University of Mississippi.

Notes Cassie: “While our firm grows, our practice remains focused. The legal needs and rights of the rural property owner, whether rancher, farmer, non-profit, business, or individual client, will always be our top priority.”

About Braun & Gresham, PLLC
Braun & Gresham, PLLC is an innovative law firm providing a wide-range of expertise and legal service for owners of rural property including estate planning, purchase and sale of ranch or farmland, fighting property taxes, resolving neighbor disputes, protecting land in condemnation, and negotiating conservation easements. With a rapidly growing roster of condemnation and landowner rights cases, the firm has recently expanded its litigation group to three full-time attorneys. The firm is based on the outskirts of Austin near Dripping Springs, Texas, with an expanding office in San Antonio. For more information, visit www.braungresham.com.

WHEN WORLDS COLLIDE, ENVIRONMENT AND LANDOWNERS BENEFIT

EcoLab program brings ecological research and tax benefits together for the good of Texas

Richard Garriott may be best known as an explorer of other worlds - a god among video gamers, he was the world's first second-generation space traveler and sixth private astronaut. But Garriott is also a lifelong environmental advocate and conservation activist here on Earth. So when he bought some beautiful, wild Central Texas land connected to the Balcones Canyonlands Preserve, Garriott knew he wanted to do more to protect the property than simply let it be.

"I believe the spirit of conservation is really high among most people," Garriott says. "But I also think most people don't know the legal requirements and don't understand the issues around conservation, what defines good stewardship and land management." Likewise, very few people know about government programs that reward landowners for being good land stewards, and even fewer understand the details.

With this in mind, Garriott contacted conservation law firm Braun & Associates, where attorney Cassie Gresham introduced him to the Texas EcoLab program. The program, developed by and offered through Braun, connects conservation-minded landowners with university ecological researchers. The landowners agree to let their property be used primarily for research for two years, at which point their land can transition into wildlife management appraisal. The EcoLab program advances significant ecological research while providing landowners with substantial - and prompt - property tax savings.

Story continued at braunassociateslaw.com/successstories/Braun_EcoLab.pdf.