Joshua A. Bethke ’17 is an associate in the Dallas office of Coats Rose, P.C., a transaction and litigation law firm focused on development: the development of real estate, affordable housing, special purpose districts, business, and private wealth. His practice is focused on public finance and real estate law, and he has helped significantly grow the firm’s work creating and administering special purpose districts in North Texas and throughout the state.
He graduated from The University of Texas at Austin (UT) in 2014 with a bachelor’s degree in psychology and a minor in business administration. “I didn’t know law school was the plan when I started as an undergrad,” Bethke said. “I thought I’d become a clinical psychologist. Then I heard about the LSAT, took it, and did well.” That decision set him on the path to becoming an attorney.
At South Texas Law, he served as note and comment editor for the South Texas Law Review, did pro bono estate planning work, was a member of the STCL Texas Exes organization, and graduated with honors with his JD in 2017. After eight months at a small construction law firm, he accepted an offer from Coats Rose.
In his current role, Bethke represents clients before a number of governmental entities, including the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality, cities, counties, and various regional service providers. His work requires a variety of legal and business skills. He is grateful for the business foundation program at UT, the transactional practice certificate he earned at South Texas Law, and law school courses that honed his legal writing and contract drafting skills — an “artform,” according to Bethke.
“Law school created a framework for how to analytically consider different tasks,” he said. “Professors required us to study an issue and apply the rules of law, and I do that every day.”
Though Bethke does not officially have the title “senior associate,” he is the most senior associate on his team and spends time helping people get trained up in the routine of what the work requires. “I have found myself in a quasi-managerial role. Most things trickle through my door, working hand-in-hand with my boss, and I help new associates brush up on the skills needed — from contract drafting to client relations.”
At the beginning of his time at Coats Rose, Bethke was mostly responsible for coordinating the monthly meetings of the boards of directors of numerous special purpose districts and drafting the associated resolutions and orders to be presented to those boards for approval. Now, he spends more time in the upfront development work of negotiating and drafting agreements with cities, and water and sewer providers, and working closely with developers in determining the best financing mechanism for a particular project prior to the creation of a special purpose district.
“When I started at this firm more than six years ago, it was me, my boss, and a few support staff on our Dallas public finance team,” Bethke said. “There were approximately 30 active districts we represented. Now, we have nine attorneys and about eight support staff, and we represent more than 300 special purpose districts in the area as general counsel and bond counsel. We’ve been hiring left and right.”
The firm represents special purpose districts, including water and control improvement districts, municipal utility districts, freshwater supply districts, public improvement districts, and municipal management districts.
Bethke, who has been named to the “Ones to Watch” for 2025 by Best Lawyers, loves being at Coats Rose and enjoys his work.
“You don’t study MUDs or other special purpose districts in law school, except in passing,” he said. “This practice touches on so many different areas of law — real estate, finance, development, administrative law, Open Meetings Act, Robert’s Rules of Order, easements, eminent domain… so many different facets. They don’t teach a class on all these things. I have learned so much on the job, and I still have much to learn.”
