SHARI WYNNE RESSLER

Managing Partner

BIOGRAPHY

Shari Wynne Ressler is the Managing Partner of RWR Legal. Shari’s entrepreneurial spirit and commitment to helping people achieve success drives the firm’s purpose, vision and mission.  She leads the strategic planning for the firm and manages the execution of the firm, with a focus on client service, marketing and development.

Shari Wynne Ressler is a self-made, serial entrepreneur, starting her first business at the age of 16.  She co-founded RWR Legal in 1996, with the goal of serving all clients with the same skill, vigor and intelligence that benefits the largest companies in the world.  In 2006, she created 6Degrees Connect, a personalized referral match company founded to connect the firm’s small business clients with proven, vetted service providers.  In October of 2011, RWR Legal launched Incubation Station, now SKU, Shari’s brainchild for the first and leading consumer products accelerator that connects stellar, market-validated companies with the industry resources and mentorship needed to succeed.  In 2015, at Austin’s SXSW, RWR Legal launched the Entrepreneurial Law Bar Association (EBA) bringing together business counsel worldwide to establish best practices for Startup/Entrepreneurial Law, designed to help innovators achieve success and grow businesses in the new economy.

Shari is currently active in the Central Texas Angel Network, the Advisory Committee of the Food Lab, at the University of Texas, Austin, the Innovation Committee for the Austin Development Zone and an active speaker on entrepreneurial and investing issues. She is President of SKU. She is a Past President and Membership Chair of the Austin Chapter of Entrepreneurs’ Organization, a global association of business owners; past co-Chair of the Austin Business Journal’s Fast-Fifty Executive Advisory Board and Past President and Co-President for RISE: Women, dedicated to helping women entrepreneurs.  Shari has been honored on multiple occasions for her service to the Austin Entrepreneurial Community.

Shari Wynne Ressler, along with Richard Ressler, the firm’s Managing General Counsel, provides legal and strategic counsel to the firm’s clients not only analyzing legal issues but guiding critical business decisions. She mentors and connects RWR Legal clients with expertise and resources.

Shari Wynne Ressler started her legal career as an attorney for the Plan Benefits Security Division of the U.S. Department of Labor, where she litigated on behalf of the Secretary of Labor, breach of Title I of ERISA, fiduciary duty matters in connection with the investment and/or administration of pension plan assets. Thereafter, she was associated with the national law firms of Fried, Frank, Harris, Shriver, and Jacobson, as well as McDermott, Will & Emery. She practiced employee benefits law with a focus on fiduciary issues, and other Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation (“PBGC”) and Internal Revenue Service (“IRS”) issues such as funding, diversification, compliance, tax qualification and plan termination in connection with corporate/real estate transactions.

She was honored with the Labor Secretary’s Exceptional Achievement Award as the co-counsel in one of the leading cases in the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals with respect to the fiduciary status and obligations of plan fiduciaries; see, Reich v. Lancaster, 843 F. Supp. 194 (N.D. Tex. 1993), aff’d, 55 F.3d 1034 (5th Cir. 1995).

PUBLICATIONS
SCHOOL AFFILIATIONS
  • University of California at Davis, Bachelor of Arts
  • University of California at Berkeley “Boalt Hall” School of Law, Juris Doctorate

  shari@rwrlegal.com
  Connect with Shari
  512.320.0601
PRACTICE AREAS
  • Corporate Counsel
  • Strategic Counsel
  • Labor Law
  • Employee Benefits
BAR ADMISSIONS
  • Austin
    • Labor and Employment
    • Solo and Small Firm
  • Texas
    • General Counsel and General Practice
    • Solo and Small Firm
  • California
  • District of Columbia
PROFESSIONAL ASSOCIATIONS
  • SKU
  • Central Texas Angel Network
  • Entrepreneurial Law Bar Association
  • The Food Lab @ UT
  • Austin Development Zone