Austin represents Texas operators and non-operators in complex issues and disputes. He seeks practical solutions to avoid litigation, but adopts aggressive courtroom strategies when necessary.
The Proliferation of Forms: The wide-spread use of forms in the oil and gas industry has created nothing short of a revolution in allowing land professionals to expedite the process of putting complex agreements in place. Additionally, this "forms culture" has dramatically helped to ensure excellent quality...
Purpose and Application of Mineral Liens Everyone in the construction industry is intimately familiar with the "Mechanic's Lien," which gives a security interest in the title to real property (and sometimes personal property) to those who have supplied materials or labor to improve the property. In...
High risk, high reward. We in the oil and gas industry have been toughened; have been forced to learn to traverse the risk, and to reap the rewards. Heck, oil and gas exploration and production is practically as synonymous with the "American Dream" as we can get. The...
Farmout Agreements are one of the most widely used agreements in the oil and gas industry.((Special thanks to Professor Lowe for his excellent article on this subject, Analyzing Oil and Gas Farmout Agreements, Sw. L.J. 759 (1987).)) However, there is no largely adopted model form. As such, they...
"Common" Oil and Gas Law As time passes, the "academic minds" have recognized more and more that Oil and Gas Law is not simply a mixture of advanced property law and advanced contract law. To the contrary, the advent and progression of the energy era as...
Who owns the void left behind after millions of tons of salt are mined - and can it be used for someone else’s storage business? The Texas Supreme Court just drew the line.
