With a firm understanding of petroleum geology and our vast industry experience, we handle virtually any type of energy-related issue. Every ML attorney has professional commitment to dedicate their legal practice to the energy industry—with the majority of our attorneys having obtained Board Certification in Oil, Gas and Mineral Law by the Texas Board of Legal Specialization. As such, our clients can count on diligent, knowledgeable, timely and effective service without having to spend time and money bringing us up to speed on complex issues.
Our experience includes, but is not limited to, oil and gas litigation and dispute resolution, reviewing, revising, and explaining oil and gas leases, negotiating and drafting leases, addenda and special provisions, and various agreements involving mineral rights, seismic surveys, right of ways, easements, and accommodating surface use, eminent domain matters, involving pipeline matters, royalty and title review, establishing entities for property ownership and royalty distribution, and assisting with estate preservation matters.
Advances in horizontal well drilling and completion technologies have changed the industry requiring unique and specialized experience when examining title, determining ownership, and reporting the same in title opinions. ML’s attorneys possess the knowledge, experience and organizational techniques to successfully handle these challenges. Specifically, each of our attorneys is equipped with the knowledge and experience necessary to recognize and understand the legal nuances when determining ownership, leasing, and producing oil and gas from horizontal wells traversing lands under rivers, streams, roads and railroads, together with the numerous other issues operators face with when drilling horizonal wells.
Although most of our oil and gas title, transactional, and litigation matters affect privately-owned mineral lands, we are also well-versed and experienced with such matters affecting state-owned and federally-owned mineral lands in Texas, New Mexico, Colorado, and Wyoming. Our experience with federally-owned lands includes on-shore Bureau of Land Management (BLM) lands and offshore Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) leases covering the Outer Continental Shelf (OCS) in the Gulf of Mexico. We have knowledge and experience navigating the specific issues related to government-owned minerals and the various state and federal governing bodies with jurisdiction over the same.