Christian Dashaun Menefee
Christian is the youngest person and first African American to be elected Harris County Attorney—the chief civil lawyer for the largest county in Texas. He manages an office of 300+ attorneys and staff and represents a constituency of nearly 5 million Harris County residents.
Since taking office in January 2021, Christian has focused the Harris County Attorney’s Office on advocating for Harris County residents. He has filed lawsuits against companies that have polluted in underserved neighborhoods, against Texas Governor Greg Abbott and Attorney General Ken Paxton to fight Texas’s restrictive voting laws, and against state agencies whose actions have resulted in harm to people living in Harris County.
Christian has tirelessly advocated for Harris County residents.
The son of two veterans, Christian was the first in his family to attend college. He is a graduate of The University of Texas at San Antonio, and Washington University St. Louis School of Law. Christian currently resides in Houston with his wife Kaitlyn, their son Gabriel, and their rescue dogs, Howie and Kennedy.
A product of Harris County public schools, Christian has also focused the office on giving back to students and guiding them to future success. In the summer of 2022, he launched the office’s inaugural Summer Legal Academy, a two-week program for local high school students aimed at informing them on the path to becoming an attorney, the ins and outs of law school, and the different practices an attorney can pursue.
Prior to being elected Harris County Attorney, Christian practiced business litigation in the private sector. He began his career at Fulbright & Jaworski (now Norton Rose Fulbright), an international law firm founded in Houston more than 100 years ago. Christian has spent countless hours on pro bono work, including advising the NAACP Legal Defense Fund, advising immigrants and their families at Bush Intercontinental Airport during the “Muslim ban,” and providing free legal advice to veterans.
Christian also has a long history of spending his nights and weekends working to better his community. As the brother of a childhood cancer survivor, Christian has volunteered at MD Anderson Cancer Center and with the Leukemia Lymphoma Society. He also served on Houston’s Independent Police Oversight Board, on the boards of the Houston Young Lawyers Association and the State Bar of Texas’s Minority Counsel Program, and on the board of a nonprofit aimed at providing job readiness programs to ex-offenders.
Christian is dedicated to ensuring that Harris County government works for all people who live here, regardless of the neighborhood they live in, how much money they make, or the color of their skin. And he remains committed to using the Harris County Attorney’s Office to achieve that goal.