By Mark Curriden, JD
Senior Writer for The Texas Lawbook
Three former Dewey & LeBouef energy lawyers, including mergers and acquisition expert Thomas Moore of Houston, have joined Baker Botts as partners in its corporate law section.
Moore, William Lamb and Michael Didriksen of New York, are the most recent lawyers jumping to a large Texas law firm from Dewey, which only a couple years ago had more than 1,300 lawyers and $1 billion in revenues. Dewey is unlikely to be operating as a law firm by this time next week.
Lamb was co-chair of Dewey’s Utilities, Power and Pipelines Global Industry Sector Group. Didriksen was a partner in Dewey’s U.S. Energy and Utilities Practice Group. They will continue to be based in New York.
Moore was co-chair of Dewey’s energy mergers and acquisitions practice. He led the representation of the Angola LNG project that is designed to eliminate flaring of natural gas produced in Angola’s offshore oil production. He led the representation of RWE in its acquisition of a 50 percent interest in Excelerate Energy, a U.S.-based international LNG trading and infrastructure company. And he represents Chinese and Korean national oil companies in transactional matters in African and South America.
Moore, who was recruited by several large Texas law firms, said choosing Baker Botts as his new home was easy.
“I looked around at alternatives when it became clear that Dewey & LeBoeuf could no longer support my practice,” says Moore. “Baker Botts jumped out as the place where my clients would be most comfortable and where I could continue to expand the relationships in the energy industry that I have been developing for 30 years.”
“I think that the energy M&A practice will continue to expand, but the pace will depend on the rate at which the economies in the less developed parts of the world grow,” he says.
Moore says that M&A activity in the energy arena has several drivers, but none have been bigger than economic development in India, China, Korea and the rest of Asia.
“That development is dependent on reliable energy supply, which in turn has led to a flow of capital from Asia into Africa, South America, Iraq, most recently, the United States,” he says. “Private equity will continue to play a role, but I do not know how it will react if there are extended periods of price volatility or the extent to which it can deal long term with exploration risk and the technical risks of development of shale and other non-conventional resources.”
Moore says that the next couple of years are likely to see a lot of volatility and change in the energy industry.
“But volatility and change always benefits lawyers, making this be a very good time to be an energy M&A lawyer at an international energy law firm,” he says.
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