Mike Stafford

When a Texas county needs to acquire land for a highway, a flood control project, or a new public facility, and needs it handled fairly, efficiently, and in a way that holds up in court, Mike Stafford has been doing exactly that work for 25 years: first from inside Harris County's own legal department, and now as outside counsel to governmental entities across the state.

Stafford was the client before he was the lawyer. As Harris County's elected County Attorney, he ran the legal office that governmental entities like the ones David & Stephens represents now depend on, which means he has sat in the client's chair through the same condemnation fights, compliance questions, and civil rights suits he now handles from the other side of the table.

He represented Harris County in one of the largest disputed condemnation cases on record: the county valued the condemned property at $15 million, the property owner demanded $39 million, and after extensive litigation, Stafford resolved it for an amount close to the county's original number. He advises governmental entities on flood control and levee infrastructure acquisition, and counsels public officials and candidates on ballot challenges and election litigation.

Stafford joins David & Stephens with the steady, practical judgment of someone who has run a government legal department himself. He knows what it feels like to be the client waiting on an answer, and he still works that way. He also holds the Governor-commissioned ceremonial rank of Admiral in the Texas Navy. Outside the office, he has spent years working through the clues of a well-known hidden treasure in the Rocky Mountains, the kind of patient, methodical puzzle-solving that also happens to describe most of what lands on his desk.