Wes Sharples had a clear vision when he left Texas for college at Dartmouth in 1999: Play football, earn a degree in economics and get a big job on Wall Street.
“My playing career ended after a year and a half along with my interest in economics,” Sharples told The Texas Lawbook. “Instead, I pursued degrees in government and history and started to think seriously about graduate school. I ultimately determined law school was the best fit, but it was more pragmatism than lifelong ambition.”
Lewis Energy Group is just fine with Sharples’ restructured career.
During the past two years, Sharples has guided the San Antonio-based, privately owned, vertically integrated oil and gas enterprise through five transformational corporate transactions and negotiated a highly favorable settlement agreement in an eight-figure litigation.
“Wes has great business sense,” said Lewis Energy President Chad McGuffin. “He’s a trusted resource who balances legal and business priorities well, and he knows when it’s time to stop the back and forth and close the deal. Plenty of lawyers can spot issues; Wes helps the business decide what to do about them. He’s reliable, practical, and decisive, and he gives clear answers. He understands that a good lawyer doesn’t just say no. He finds a path to yes that protects the company.”
Citing Sharples’ successes at the deal table and in the courtroom, the Association of Corporate Counsel’s San Antonio Chapter and The Texas Lawbook are awarding the Tulane University law school graduate with the 2026 San Antonio Corporate Counsel Award for General Counsel of the Year for a Small Legal Department (five lawyers and fewer).
Sharples and a dozen other award recipients will be honored Oct. 29.
“There are general counsels who manage legal departments, and then there are general counsels who lead a small, elite team to punch far above its weight — delivering results that rival those of departments many times their size,” Norton Rose Fulbright partner Jeffrey Webb wrote in nominating Sharples. “Wes Sharples is emphatically the latter.”
The attention-grabbing acquisitions, divestitures and joint ventures were not Sharples’ only achievements.
“Wes and his team handle the full spectrum of disputes arising in a complex, multi-entity energy enterprise: personal injury litigation, commercial disputes, lease controversies, and international litigation and arbitration — including a recent arbitration venued in Bogotá, Colombia,” Webb wrote. “But what distinguishes Wes is not simply his ability to litigate; it is his consistent emphasis on resolving disputes before they reach the courthouse. His proactive approach to risk mitigation and early dispute resolution has delivered substantial recurring value to Lewis Energy — value that rarely appears in headlines but is deeply felt in the company’s bottom line and operational stability.”
“Wes rolls up his sleeves and does the work himself rather than just managing people who do. That’s true of much of the Lewis Energy leadership team,” he said.
McGuffin and other executives at Lewis Energy said Sharples has earned the trust of leaders throughout the company.
“They bring him in early because they know he’ll make the deal better, not slower,” McGuffin told The Lawbook.
Sharples joined Lewis Energy in 2013 as senior counsel and was promoted to GC in 2020. His role has steadily expanded to include risk management, human relations and other administrative functions.
“This reflects the trust the company has in him, and he has handled each with the same steady, thoughtful approach,” Lewis Energy Chief Strategic Officer Eric Vornsand said. “Along the way, we have worked on billions of dollars of transactions together, often with little or no help from outside counsel. Doing that with a small team is both the challenge and the success. He has consistently delivered the quality and speed you’d expect from a much larger department, while keeping costs under control and protecting the company’s interests.”
The Early Years
Sharples, an only child, grew up in George West, which is about 85 miles south of San Antonio. His dad owned an oilfield service company, but was involved in numerous entrepreneurial pursuits — mostly focused on the banking and oil and gas industries — during his career. His mother was a teacher.
The family moved to San Antonio as Sharples was starting the eighth grade. He graduated from Alamo Heights High School, where he played varsity baseball and football.
After graduating from Dartmouth, Sharples went to law school at Tulane in New Orleans.
At the start of his second year, Hurricane Katrina made landfall in New Orleans.
“Beyond the obvious disruption to life and school, the storm’s immediate aftermath profoundly altered my life,” he told The Lawbook. “I had been dating my wife — also a Tulane law student and native of New Orleans — for two months when a planned two-day evacuation turned into a semester-long relocation.”
Tulane allowed its law students to attend other law schools for the fall semester.
“At the time, Tulane’s reopening was uncertain,” he said. “There were many safer, more practical options for us individually. However, we prioritized staying together and chose to move halfway across the country so we could both attend Washington and Lee Law School [in Virginia]. The rest, as they say, is history.”
After passing the bar exam, Sharples stayed in New Orleans to practice for three years at Gordon Arata, a 42-lawyer, full-service firm that also has an office in Houston. His practice focused on oil and gas transactions, but he also worked on some oil and gas litigation.
Move Home to San Antonio
In 2010, Sharples and his family moved to San Antonio, where he helped Burleson launch its San Antonio office. At Burleson, he worked on oil and gas titles and transactions driven by development in the Barnett Shale and Eagle Ford Shale.
In 2013, Lewis Energy came calling.
“I enjoyed private practice, but an in-house position was always a career goal,” he said. “I desired greater access to the business side of the industry. Lewis was not a client but I had long been familiar with the company. The timing was right to make the move.”
For the first five years, Sharples reported to the GC and strictly handled legal matters. In 2018, he transitioned to a legal role supporting exploration and production operations directly.
In October 2020, Lewis Energy promoted Sharples, who returned to the legal department to take over as general counsel. He now leads a legal team of three lawyers and eight human resources professionals.
Earlier this year, he assumed responsibility for the company’s human resources department.
“I did not have a background in human resources, so the learning curve has been steep,” he said. “However, the largest challenge has been time management/balance between this new role and my primary function as general counsel.”
With Sharples as GC, Lewis Energy has added hundreds of thousands of net acres in South Texas, operations in Mexico spanning nearly 100,000 net acres and a history of international dealings in Colombia and Canada — a remarkable task for a chief legal officer who leads so many transactions without a budget for outside legal counsel.
“Wes has an indefatigable moral compass. This strong sense of ethics is central to how he exercises judgment and works with people,” said Tom Ciarlone, a director at Kane Russell Coleman Logan. “Wes has deep roots in San Antonio and South Texas. He is integrated into the local legal and business communities, and he invests heavily in those relationships. This combination of homegrown knowledge and hard-earned trust is especially valuable when Wes is working with major landowners and industry partners in the oil patch.”
“Wes considers the range of potential legal results alongside the monetary expense and distraction costs, the commercial consequences, and the overall impact on key relationships,” Ciarlone said. “His judgment about whether a fight is worth having—and about what the company actually needs to accomplish—is one of the qualities I most value in him.”
Click here for a Premium Subscriber Q&A with Sharples, where he shares what he looks for in hiring outside counsel.
Fun Facts
Favorite book: A Soldier of the Great War, Mark Helprin
Favorite movie: National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation
Favorite restaurant: Cheese Enchiladas at Los Barrios
Favorite beverage: Dr. Pepper
Favorite vacation: Family trips to Europe