The WaTer LaWyer

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The Water Lawyer

Tarleton titan takes on corporate giants

By H A rry B ATTS on

Scott Summy (’86), nationally and reverentially dubbed “The Water Lawyer,” earned his reputation representing common citizens and public entities against corporate giants.

“Millions of people drink clean water now as a result of the litigation that I have generated,” says Summy, the Dallas attorney with Baron and Budd who has recovered more than a billion dollars in settlements with international corporations. “You can’t put a value on human health.” Summy played a key role in the 2010 BP Gulf of Mexico oil spill settlement, gaining millions of dollars for affected people and businesses. In 2012, he concluded a national class action settlement with Syngenta, a multinational company based in Sweden, on behalf of public water providers struggling with the intrusion of atrazine in their 12 water source. Recently, Summy filed one of the first cases in the U.S. against Monsanto to remove polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) from public schools.

Summy’s path to prominence began early in his career when, late on an August Friday afternoon in 1995, he accepted a phone call from a man in North Carolina who told him that he had been drinking a chemical called Methyl Tertiary Butyl Ether (MTBE) in water at his home. “I had no clue what MTBE was, but I told him that I would come meet with him.”

The meeting, which involved dozens of people from two trailer parks, led to a lawsuit against Conoco for allowing MTBE, an additive to gasoline, to leak into drinking water. After a jury found Conoco grossly negligent, Summy settled the suit for $36 million.

Days later, he was called to a news conference in California to launch an effort to ban MTBE. Summy ended up representing the city of Santa Monica and over 200 other public entities, including the largest groundwater provider in

the U.S., New York-based Suffolk County Water Authority, against the nation’s major oil companies—cases that cemented his reputation as The Water Lawyer.

A high school field trip to the Tarrant County courthouse convinced Summy that he wanted to become a trial lawyer. When a high school friend’s father, who had attended Tarleton, recommended that the two consider the university, they decided to check it out.

“I certainly needed financial help to go school,” Summy recalled. “I was awarded the Dick Smith Scholarship, and I immediately made up my mind to attend Tarleton. That scholarship did wonders for me.”

A political science major, he particularly appreciated Dr. O. A. Grant and Dr. Harold Walton. “They were just phenomenal professors. The thing I really loved about it was that they gave you such individual attention.”

At Texas Tech Law School, he felt prepared to compete with students from the larger, better known universities. “I felt like I was as equipped or better equipped to perform in law school as they were,” he said. “I credit Tarleton for preparing me for the rigors of law school.”

In his career, as he repeatedly went up against Ivy League corporate attorneys, Summy also felt that Tarleton helped him develop the confidence to succeed. “When I was a student at Tarleton, I had a lot of meetings with professors and got a lot of guidance about what I needed to do to prepare to be a lawyer. They just gave me a lot of confidence in moving forward as a law student.”

Embarking on this career has affected millions of people. “So having an impact, a large impact, on human health through drinking water and other environmental issues that I’m involved in, is what really makes the job— and makes it worthwhile.”

To listen to Summy talk about his career and his time at Tarleton, visit www.tarleton/summy

Scott Summy, Profile

Baron & Budd, Principle Head of the Environmental Litigation Group Tarleton State University, Bachelor of Arts, cum laude, 1986, Political Science Texas Tech University School of Law, Juris Doctor, 1990 Best Lawyers in America, 2006-2015 Editions Texas Super Lawyers (Thompson Reuters, 2003-2013) Finalist – Public Justice Trial Lawyer of the Year (2009, 2013) Wife, Lenna – met when he was a senior at Tarleton and she was Miss Wayland University, a contestant for Miss Texas. Actively engaged in running two nonprofit corporations that she cofounded: Supreme Court Youth Organization and Scholars and Athletes Serving Others (SASO). Three children:

Ashley, attending Baylor University, active in Pi Phi

Sorority

Hunter, senior at Southlake Carroll Senior High – committed to play basketball at University of San

Diego

Fielder, seventh grader, at Southlake Carroll Middle

School, plays on elite basketball team: Team Texas Nonprofit Organization:

Supreme Court Youth Organization,

Sponsors elite basketball teams competing nationally

All original team members (originating in fourth grade) offered Division I scholarships Favorite Saying: “You Can’t Teach Hungry” Favorite Tarleton Memory: The friends that I established, going out to eat all over town, going to the $1 movie Monday nights, attending Tarleton athletic events, we had a blast doing that.