Nisha is an environmental lawyer working in the firm’s Environmental and Toxic Tort Litigation Practice Group.
Nisha and has gained valuable legal and scientific experience during her education and career through her work at the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality, the Environmental Law and Policy Center, and the USDA Office of General Counsel, where she worked in regulatory compliance and litigation.
Before coming to Shook, Nisha worked at the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality, drafting petitions, orders and motions related to administrative enforcement actions; conducting legal research and drafting legal opinions and briefs on long-term projects and novel legal issues, supporting agency programs; and negotiating settlement offers with respondents, opposing counsel and agency staff.
Nisha earned her J.D. with a concentration in Trial Advocacy & Dispute Resolution from the University of Illinois Chicago School of Law. During law school, she was named a Baum Legal Fellow for the Environmental Law and Policy Center of Chicago, where she assisted with legislative drafting, clean energy business development, grassroots advocacy, and special projects. She also served as a legal intern for the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Office of General Counsel, Milwaukee, where she provided legal research and reviewed investigative reports and prepared draft pleadings in administrative proceedings. Nisha earned her undergraduate degree in biology, with a concentration in environmental studies, from St. Olaf College, where she studied environmental science in a semester abroad and then worked as a laboratory researcher at the University of Missouri in the Fritschi Crop Physiology Lab. There she worked on a large‐scale collaborative study of switchgrass, collecting data on phenology, physiology, diseases, and environmental conditions for over 2,000 plants; assisted in the collection, processing and analysis of plant samples harvested from field experiments; and engaged in depositions and other litigation activities.
Nisha is an active member and leader in the American Bar Association’s Section of the Environment, Energy and Resources, where she has been a co-chair on the International Committee and a cohort on the Leadership Development Program, and was on the Planning Committee of last year’s spring conference. When not practicing law, Nisha enjoys playing the violin and was first violinist in the Chicago Bar Association Symphony Orchestra.
Note: Missouri admission pending; practicing under the supervision of an Illinois-licensed attorney.