Mr. Tom Starnes
Counsel, Andrews Kurth LLP
Tom enjoys a national practice in environmental litigation. Representing clients primarily in the chemical and energy industries, Tom has served as lead counsel in the defense of multi-million dollar cost-recovery and enforcement actions brought by federal and state regulators under CERCLA, RCRA and analogous state statutes. In addition, for clients who have made (often massive) expenditures to investigate or remediate environmental contamination, Tom has been retained to prosecute cost-recovery claims to recoup a fair share of those costs from other potentially responsible parties.
Over the years, Tom has also developed a challenging and rewarding practice representing religious institutions in a wide range of litigation and counseling matters. Tom has been hired as counsel to defend claims asserted against—and especially to enforce the property rights of—some of the country’s largest and most established religious denominations, including The United Methodist Church; the African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church and the African Methodist Episcopal Church. He has been retained as counsel on litigation matters by the General Council on Finance and Administration of The United Methodist Church; on personnel issues by the General Board of Church and Society of The United Methodist Church; and he currently is honored to serve as Chancellor of the Baltimore-Washington Conference of The United Methodist Church.
Tom currently represents various amici denominations (including, The United Methodist Church, The Evangelical Lutheran Church of America, the Presbyterian Church USA, and the Seventh-day Adventists) in support of the Episcopal Church's position in the church property litigation that is now pending the Virginia courts.