J. Wade Bainum has almost three decades of​ experience in the criminal justice system. In his career, he has represented individuals charged with a wide variety of state and federal crimes including, among others, money laundering offenses, firearms trafficking offenses, drug trafficking offenses, white collar offenses, FCPA, and public corruption offenses. He is conversational in Spanish and Portuguese.

Mr. Bainum earned his Bachelor of Arts in History from Kansas State University and his Juris Doctor degree from the University of Kansas.

Since graduating from law school, Mr. Bainum has focused on criminal and civil litigation. He began his career as a state prosecutor in Kansas and then went into private practice. In 2004, Mr. Bainum accepted a position with the Federal Defender for the Southern District of Texas. He remained in this position until 2013 when he left to open his own practice. In 2017, Mr. Bainum accepted a position with the Harris County Public Defender's Office as an Assistant Public Defender in the newly formed Bail Division. He has been Chief of the Division since 2019.