Chair, State Bar of Texas Child Protection Law Section

Sandra Hachem of Houston is Chair of the Child Protection Law Section (CPLS) of the State Bar of Texas for the 2022-2023 term. She has long been an advocate of improving the practice of child welfare law in this State and was one of the founding members of CPLS. She served in various roles for CPLS since it was approved as a Section by the State Bar of Texas in 2018, and was elected as Secretary, Vice Chair and Chair-Elect.   

Sandra assumes a position as one of the Commissioners of the Texas Supreme Court’s Permanent Judicial Commission of Children, Youth & Family in 2022 – which is an organization she has been pleased to work with as a Collaborative member for many years. She also served on the Exam Commission for the Child Welfare Specialization in its development and implementation during the first three years after its approval as a specialization. Moreover, prior to the creation of CPLS, she worked on the former Child Abuse & Neglect Committee of the State Bar of Texas in various roles over a decade including as a Vice Chair and Chair in the years 2008-2010. Moreover, she has also been a prolific writer on child protection law topics for the past 20 years and presented at numerous state-wide and local CLE trainings. She was also honored with the Fair Davenport Award of Appreciation in 2016 and given a Chair Award by the Child Protection Law Section in 2021.       

Her legal career has primarily involved work an appellate attorney. Her first job was as a briefing attorney for the Fourteenth Court of Appeals in Houston in 1991. In the 30 years following that, she worked for the Harris County Attorney providing appellate representation and the last 20 years her representation mostly involved child protection cases. She has been board certified in Civil Appellate Law since 2003. 

Sandra has two grown children. Her oldest son works as Pediatrician and her younger son is an Investment Analyst. Her husband is an Infectious Disease Professor at M.D. Anderson. She and her husband enjoy working on various health outreach projects with an organization known as Health Outreach to the Middle East (H.O.M.E.) and also host and support students in working with a Pharm-D program run by Methodist Hospital.