Energy, Oil and Gas
Energy deals fail in the same three places: the operating agreement, the tax structure, and what the offering document promised about reserves.
The practice
Transactional energy counsel, with the securities side attached.
Most energy programs are also securities offerings, and most law firms treat those as two separate problems handled by two separate people. Here they are the same engagement — the drilling program, the partnership that holds it, the offering that funds it and the tax treatment that makes it worth doing.
The work covers exploration and development, acquisition and divestiture, and the agreements particular to the sector: operating, participation, farm-out, net profits interests and joint ventures. Assets have included producing and non-producing leases in Archer, Gaines, Martin and Wichita Counties, Texas, and in the Permian Basin and the Bakken, together with drilling and workover rigs, infrastructure, and minerals and royalties in California, Utah and Texas.
The background here is operating, not advisory. Before founding the firm, its counsel served as chief operating officer and general counsel to a vertically integrated oil and gas company — an Inc. 500 business that managed or operated over $300 million of oil and gas assets — sitting on its executive investment committee and running acquisitions, due diligence and syndications from the inside.
Tax
The part that decides whether the deal works.
Intangible drilling costs, depletion and the structure of a direct participation program are usually what an investor is buying. Getting that wrong is not a drafting error — it removes the reason the program exists. The firm's counsel holds an LL.M. in taxation and has spoken repeatedly on oil and gas taxation and direct energy program structuring, including at the ADISA and Mick & Associates energy symposia.
A glossary of oil and natural gas terms is published alongside this practice.