The prominent criminal defense firm of Gerger Hennessy & Martin is now Gerger Hennessy Martin & Peterson, after recently hiring Heather Peterson.
Peterson, who officially joined the firm March 1, had been a partner at Nugent & Peterson, working alongside Paul Nugent since 2011. And for 12 years prior to that she was an associate attorney at Foreman DeGuerin Nugent & Gerger, making this her second stint working with Gerger.
Her resume of wins includes a not guilty verdict a federal jury in Fort Worth returned in the trial of Mark Forkner, the Boeing chief technical pilot in the Boeing MAX crash case, and a directed verdict bringing an end to the Harris County criminal trial of Leslie Comardelle, the former plant manager of Arkema’s organic peroxide facility in Crosby, Texas.
She’s defended clients against complex white collar and environmental prosecutions and she has represented clients facing capital murder charges, too. But she started working on her first case — the one that would lead to her career in criminal defense — as a third-year law student at the University of Houston Law Center before she had even passed the bar, helping to defend her mother who had been indicted on federal mail fraud charges.
The defense team representing five defendants included prominent Houston criminal defense attorneys Rusty Hardin and Dan Cogdell.
“Rusty Hardin represented my mom and I sat second chair with Rusty,” she told The Lawbook in a recent interview.
While the monthslong trial was rolling along Peterson was waiting to hear some important news.
“I got my bar results during the trial from Dan Cogdell on his pager, so that ages me,” she said. “He gave me a thumbs up during court, he had a secretary calling the state bar.”
And the trial had a happy ending for Peterson.
“We got a mistrial and my mom is home being a grandma now,” she said.
That experience solidified for Peterson what path her law career would take.
“Having a family member wrongfully charged … You’re like ‘This is what I want to do,’” she said. “I have to work the hardest and know the most about the case, I learned that in my mom’s case. That was my advantage — I wasn’t at the top of my law school class but I am a hard worker.”
Peterson said the focus of her practice in recent years has turned to more environmental and white-collar cases and joining Gerger Hennessy & Martin meant she would have the support team in place to help her try the bigger cases she has found herself handling.
“Not many people can say they got to work with their best friend for 25 years trying cases,” she said “And that’s what Paul and I had.”
She earned a bachelor’s degree in psychology from the University of Texas at Austin in 1995 and is a 1998 graduate of the University of Houston Law Center.