HOUSTON – Ashish Mahendru, founder of Mahendru P.C. in Houston, was quoted by Law360 in a story that examined the effects of 2017’s Hurricane Harvey on Houston courthouses.

The article, “1 Year After Harvey Houston Courts Sharing Space, Making Do” (subscription required), reviewed what happened in the year since Harvey put Houston’s 21-story criminal courthouse out of commission. For one thing, displaced courts had to share space in other courthouses, including the Houston-based federal courthouse.

Mr. Mahendru, a business and commercial litigator, recalled that when the civil courthouse first opened after Harvey, “it was an ‘utter, complete nightmare.” He noted that far more than double the amount of foot traffic inundated the largest working courthouse downtown. Yet one year later, he said, the daily chatter among practitioners in the building doesn’t include discussion of the monster storm. “That speaks volumes about how far we’ve come in this one-year time period.”

Mr. Mahendru gave credit to the county employees who had to deal with being uprooted and crowded. “Our district clerk’s office, our court administration staff and our judges have adopted — literally adopted — their family from the other courthouse complex buildings,” Mahendru told Law360.

“And if anyone can just take a step back and imagine the huge logistical challenge of taking criminal courts and family courts and squeezing them into spaces that aren’t mean to be squeezed into, and having humans work in cramped spaces, under stress, and still administer justice after Harvey, that is an A-plus. And if there’s a fight in between family members over space or some raw nerves, anyone should expect that, but that’s not the norm,” he said.

Mahendru P.C. is a boutique commercial litigation firm whose attorneys are known for their tenacity, intelligence and experience. Founded in 2001, the firm has a simple philosophy: Your problem is our problem. We adopt it, understand it and solve it. Our objective is to resolve every case in the best, fastest and most cost-efficient manner possible. We never wait for our opponent’s next move, which means we spend a lot of time at the courthouse and are well-known there.