Oil & Gas & Etc.

I noticed a wave of local attorneys signing up on LinkedIn a couple months ago. Recently I noticed some organizations Twittering like mad. Prior to these, I was getting a lot of Facebook friend requests. Before all of those I had to actually set spam filters specifically for MySpace, thanks to all the babes wanting to make contact with an old lawyer like myself. My question is, where are people finding the time for all this social networking?

It seems to me April Fool’s Day was coming up, but according to the calendar we’ve just had May Day. Was there really an April this year? Yes, I know, it’s a rhetorical question. I’ve observed that time has really accelerated the older I’ve become, but this is getting ridiculous! If entire months are going to zing by like mere days, I think I should get a few things in order right away!

Just thought I’d mention a client’s new website, Black Star 231 Corp. Jim Pryor has been a client since the early 80’s, and another company of his, Pryor Oil Company, has had a website for a few years. I probably have other clients with websites, but not sites that were made by yours truly. It’s a hobby I developed a while back. I also take credit (or blame) for my own site, as well!

Many oil and gas drilling programs involve selling undivided fractional interests to “investors”. Who would imagine that every time they draw up an assignment of an undivided fractional interest they should think about securities law? Well, they should. A lawyer who prepares participation agreements, operating agreements, or working interest assignments for such programs is working with securities. Incredibly, many, and possibly most, oil and gas lawyers do not realize (or maybe just do not acknowledge) their practice involves securities law.

Whether the drilling program is set up for investors to receive working interest assignments, limited partnership certificates, LLC membership certificates, or some other evidence of participation, it falls within the purview of federal and state securities laws. Usually, it will be state securities commissioners taking enforcement action, often in the form of a “cease and desist” order, for starters. Most oil and gas drilling programs offered by small independent producers are eligible for exemptions from registration under securities laws. In practice, most offerors don’t bother to attend to qualifying for such exemptions. Most of the time, this causes no problem. This is called “being lucky”.

We’re now seeing drilling programs offered via the internet. For an introduction to the risks and pitfalls, see “Oil & Gas Investment Solicitations on the Internet” at Lewis Mosburg’s excellent Internet Oil & Gas Newsletter.

This started out as a reply to a comment in the previous post. It ended up so long I decided it should be its own article. A commenter asked how to get a career started in oil and gas law. A couple things come to mind. One is look at industry related websites such as Rigzone. Google for more, or check my Oil Links page. Another is sign up on LinkedIn and join one of the oil related groups. I get frequent newsletters from the Oil and Gas Industry group; there’s always something about jobs, though not so much for lawyers. There’s probably a similar way to make contacts on FaceBook.

Although oil and gas law is an esoteric specialty area, there’s a broad range of career choices, depending on whether one wants to work for a big company, a law firm, go solo, work in transactional practice (contracts, sales, etc.) or in litigation, work for a federal or a state regulatory agency, etc. Whatever your focus is, that’s where you’ll want to work on getting known, making contacts, etc. In my case, FWIW, it started with a single phone call from a landowner, which got me known by the company that leased his property, which got my name mentioned to another company, and so on. I got my oil and gas career by word of mouth, hard work and building a good reputation. Unfortunately, too much hard work plus cigarettes and caffeine got me a heart attack at age 44 which sort of derailed things a while, and then I got hit with another health issue eight years later. So, I didn’t progress to “rich” and my retirement plan is to keep working. But, they tell me other things are more valuable than money, like reputation, character, honor, loyal clientele, friends. I guess I’m wealthy in that context. Still, it won’t pay for a trip through Europe, or a retirement condo near a beach.

Back in law school I couldn’t imagine anything more boring than property law, especially law about substances in the ground. Turned out to be challenging, rarely boring, and rather satisfying, for the most part. Independent producers are an interesting breed. And farmers are, well, salt of the earth. Neither are much impressed by fancy offices and Brooks Brothers suits.