Lawyers often gain valuable experience by accident. This was the case with me and force majeure. A couple of weeks after 9/11, I joined Occidental Petroleum’s business development office in Dubai. As the youngest person on the team, I received... Continue Reading →
The recipe for starting a boutique law firm is well known. Boutique law firms are typically founded by one or more Big Law alums with industry-leading expertise who then recruit top associates, essentially creating a talent pool of comparable quality... Continue Reading →
Over my 25 years as an energy transactions lawyer, I have watched as agreements of all kinds have become longer and more detailed. Last week, I was in Canada (-21 degrees) helping a client develop a new agreement. The precedent previously... Continue Reading →
An indemnity is one party’s agreement to hold another harmless for certain types of claims or losses. A typical definition of Indemnify would be as follows: “Indemnify” means release, reimburse, protect, indemnify, compensate, make whole, make good, hold harmless, and... Continue Reading →
Contractors are generally entitled to seek additional compensation (a “price adjustment”) for encountering unanticipated site conditions. The more challenging question is defining what, precisely, constitutes an unanticipated site condition. For example, in the clause below, unanticipated remains undefined: If contractor encounters unanticipated site... Continue Reading →
Over the last seven years, I’ve had the privilege of teaching the Energy Law Seminar to several hundred students at The University of Chicago Law School. Many of my students end up practicing law in Houston, where they regularly seek... Continue Reading →
Energy companies often do business in places that are not part of the Instagram travel circuit. Visas can be difficult to obtain, and tourism is virtually non-existent. These nations also tend to be home to extraordinary characters with unusual stories. ... Continue Reading →
Over the course of their construction, pipelines encounter many obstacles that require the use of subsurface tunnels. Such tunnels enable the pipeline to pass beneath roadways, railroads, rivers, and environmentally sensitive areas without disturbing them. There are three principal methods... Continue Reading →
More than 2.5 million miles of pipeline move American oil and gas production to refineries and consumers. The U.S. Energy Information Administration is tracking an additional $100 billion of new natural gas projects, which would add more than 10,000 miles... Continue Reading →
