K&L Gates announced Tuesday that Dallas corporate lawyer Patrick Knapp has joined the firm as a partner.
Knapp was most recently the vice president, general counsel, and corporate secretary of Vivakor, a Dallas-based energy and infrastructure company.
“Pat brings a strong combination of private practice and in-house leadership experience that aligns well with our clients’ evolving needs, particularly in the energy and infrastructure sectors,” Beth Petronio, managing partner of K&L Gates’ Dallas office, said in a statement. “His deep transactional experience further strengthens our ability to support clients across Texas and the broader energy market.”
Practicing at firms including Jackson Walker, McGuireWoods and Toeppich and Associates, Knapp built a practice advising public companies, private equity-backed portfolio companies, and family offices on M&A, financings, and complex commercial transactions.
He also was the division general counsel for Bridger Logistics, where he led and managed more than 30 transactions over seven months culminating in the parent MLP’s exit and wind-down of its midstream business, according to Knapp’s LinkedIn.
Knapp elaborated on his decision to join K&L Gates, highlighted what he is seeing in energy and infrastructure deals, and made a bold prediction about his Notre Dame Fighting Irish in an interview with The Texas Lawbook.
Texas Lawbook: What was the connection with K&L Gates that initially led to discussions about you joining the team and how did it start?
Pat Knapp: So, there’s a bit of a North Dallas phenomenon — or perhaps it’s just the most straight-laced and utterly boring mafia you’ll never hear of — and it consists entirely of parents in attendance at their young kids’ sports games.
In seriousness, K&L Gates is a great platform for my practice. They have an established energy-transition practice nationally, longtime Texas offices in Dallas, Austin, and Houston, and a constellation of international offices. I do M&A work principally for the energy industry, and I find myself constantly reminding folks that Texas exports more of the oil it produces than it consumes. My clients and their needs don’t stop at the border, and neither should my practice or my firm. It’s a great fit.
The Lawbook: What are two or three of the most important trends that you are seeing in energy and infrastructure deals?
Knapp: Utilization of assets that were previously thought to be useless, or even liabilities. Many traditional oil and gas producers own lots of surface acreage in rural locations, like West Texas. Some of that land might have experienced environmental contamination over the last 100 years or so, so it’s not always suited for cattle or farming today. But industry doesn’t have the same concerns, and they can build a wind farm, a solar farm, or datacenters on top of it. In the same vein, produced water was historically viewed as a waste product. Today, it’s something we’re recycling and reusing for industrial purposes, including cooling for datacenters. We’re putting our under-used resource and waste products to good use — and that’s good for Texas.
The Lawbook: What are two or three concerns or issues you were dealing with as GC at Vivakor?
Knapp: Being GC of a public company is an inherently challenging job, regardless of the company. All public company GCs have the SEC compliance matters; a constellation of outside counsel to manage; and a management team and Board who often view you as not just the lawyer, but the head of family counseling. That said, it makes you a better issue-spotter and spreads your intellectual focus across multiple practice areas — which is very different from your role in a law firm.
The Lawbook: What has been your best day as a lawyer?
Knapp: Any day I close a deal. Representing your client and getting across the finish line feels like winning a PGA tournament to a corporate M&A lawyer.
The Lawbook: What are two or three of the most important achievements over your career?
Knapp: Oh, man. I’m proud of every M&A deal we close for our clients. The thing that stands out most to me is how we wound-down Bridger in mid-2018. It was challenging, stressful, and I was perhaps the lead architect of the whole project. It was a Blue Star Airlines-style sale of the company pieces-at-a-time. There was lots of coaxing and cajoling, both internal and external. But we ultimately accomplished our goals, avoided the bad outcomes that we could, and facilitated graceful transitions for our former employees to their new owners. I’m particularly proud of that last part. You can’t run a business without people.
The Lawbook: Are there specific pro bono efforts or public service projects that mean the most to you?
Knapp: In 1979, my grandfather founded a nonprofit to provide high school scholarships to kids in South Dakota, where he’d grown up. In decades prior, public education wasn’t widespread there. An order of Catholic nuns had set up shop and made it their mission to open Catholic schools and hospitals in rural communities — the basic infrastructure of modern society. In its current incarnation, the Sister Loyola Foundation still provides scholarships to those same schools, and I’ve helped them with nonprofit governance and gift-structuring since I passed the bar. Every time they award a scholarship it makes your heart flutter just a bit — that’s another kid and family with more opportunity than they had yesterday.
The Lawbook: Is there anything else that you would like to add? How will the Irish fare in the 2026 season?
Knapp: 12-0, national title, and a top-25 defense for the first time since 2012. Go Irish. And though my wife might have words as a Purdue grad, our ~1yo. twin daughters look darn good in their Notre Dame football onesies.