AZA Attorney Sean Gorman Featured in Oil and Gas Investor Article on Rise of U.S. Shale Production

HOUSTON – The U.S. shale oil and gas production boom has boosted demand for the legal expertise needed to handle regulatory issues, property and mineral rights disputes, and other related matters, Sean Gorman, a partner at Houston-based AZA, or Ahmad, Zavitsanos & Mensing, recently told Oil and Gas Investor magazine.

The publication quotes Mr. Gorman extensively in its March 2014 issue, identifying him as one of the top lawyers serving the oil and gas industry today.

“Firms will need to develop new ways to engage regulatory agencies in order to influence the creation of new regulations and to moderate the effect of implemented regulations to protect their clients’ ability to use the most effective well-completion technologies,” says Mr. Gorman, whose extensive experience in complex business litigation and arbitration includes matters in the energy, real estate and oil field services industries.

Disputes over rights to explore and produce are increasing, and although prior regulation created economic burdens, it rarely threatened to destroy the entire value of certain assets, which is happening with the regulation of fracking, Mr. Gorman told the energy-sector magazine.

An acclaimed litigator and former managing partner of a national law firm’s Houston office, Mr. Gorman told Oil and Gas Investor that the hot U.S. shale market has increased both lease values and the number of lease disputes.

“A landowner’s financial incentive to declare a lease terminated, and by doing so, reclaim the ability to lease the mineral rights based on their new value, is huge,” says Mr. Gorman.

AZA, or Ahmad, Zavitsanos & Mensing, is a Houston-based law firm that is home to true courtroom lawyers with a formidable track record in complex commercial litigation, including energy, intellectual property, securities fraud, construction and business dispute cases. AZA is recognized by Chambers USA 2014 as among the best in Texas commercial law and by U.S. News & World Report and The Best Lawyers in America as one of the country’s best commercial litigation firms in the 2014 listing of the nation’s leading law firms. National corporate counsel named AZA one of the country’s best in client service among law firms serving the Fortune 1000. AZA has been hired on many occasions by the same companies the firm has prevailed against at trial. Read more at https://azalaw.com.