Mark Schlackman is joining Baker Botts in Houston after almost five years at King & Spalding in the nation’s fourth-largest city. Schlackman represents clients in major transactions involving energy and infrastructure projects.
Baker Botts said he advises developers, investors, lenders and other industry participants on complex transactions involving large-scale projects across the energy sector.
The Houston-based law firm said Schlackman’s practice “combines broad corporate and finance capabilities with a deep commercial understanding of how energy projects are developed, constructed, operated and maintained.”
“Mark brings together energy projects and corporate transactions in a way few lawyers can,” Baker Botts Managing Partner Danny David said in a news release. “He adds an important connection between those practices and gives clients one adviser who can help them pursue an investment from several angles.”
Baker Botts said Schlackman has counseled clients in conventional and renewable power deals, as well as midstream and downstream oil and gas transactions, and “has built a reputation for moving complex projects forward while keeping a client’s broader commercial objectives in view.”
“Clients are pursuing increasingly ambitious energy and infrastructure investments across markets and borders,” Schlackman said in the news release. “Baker Botts has the global reach and integrated capabilities needed to move those investments forward at a time when they are critically important for our clients to achieve their strategic objectives.”
Schlackman clerked in U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Louisiana for two years before working for Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom in Houston for more than eight years. He hold’s a bachelor’s degree from Loyola University in New Orleans and earned a JD at Tulane University Law School.
Baker Botts said Schlackman advised JERA in a transaction for a low-carbon ammonia production project in Ascension Parish, Louisiana, that was a finalist for the 2025 Financial Times Innovative Lawyers North America Awards and for the 2026 AIEN Energy Transition Initiative of the Year. Baker Botts represented JERA in its $1.5 billion acquisition of Haynesville Shale assets last year.
“Mark is the kind of lawyer clients want at the center of a major project or transaction,” said Carlos Solé, who was recently named co-chair of the firm’s global projects department. “He understands the commercial objective, sees how the pieces fit together and can help move an investment from initial concept through financing and execution. That combination of judgment, industry knowledge and practical deal experience makes him a powerful addition to our team.”