Sarah Payne went to college and graduate school to be a journalist covering the music industry with the dream of writing for Rolling Stone.
Her father, Randal Payne, then a Houston trial lawyer, had other ideas.
“I was worn down by my tenacious father over the course of two decades,” Payne told The Texas Lawbook. “My entering the profession was likely inescapable. It’s in my veins for better or worse. I’m certain there’s an unavoidable accident joke here somewhere. At some point in grad school, I realized I wanted my career to have a more direct impact on people’s lives than I thought I could achieve with music journalism.”
Payne’s clients at Maverick Natural Resources, where she is senior litigation counsel, are especially happy that she made the move to law. She has spent the last five years winning big disputes for the company.
One of the biggest courtroom victories came in January after a four-year contract dispute with XTO Energy regarding revenue sharing as part of a joint venture. XTO claimed Maverick owed it $33 million. Maverick argued that XTO improperly withheld millions in payments that it owed.
A weeklong jury trial in Harris County resulted in Maverick winning $5.6 million in damages — a victory that outside trial lawyers for Maverick attribute to Payne’s extraordinary work as in-house counsel.
“Having Sarah manage the in-house part on a lawsuit is like having a cheat code against the other side,” said Ryan Hackney, a partner with Ahmad Zavitsanos & Mensing, who tried the case for Maverick. “Sarah is the most effective in-house litigation director I have worked with because she has an incredible ability to get all of the different constituencies within the company on the same page and willing to help on litigation matters. Sarah is able to persuade accountants, engineers, landmen and lease operators — people who ordinarily should run or hide when they see a lawyer — to serve voluntarily as witnesses, corporate representatives and in-house experts.”
Citing Payne’s success in the XTO victory and a half-dozen other litigation disputes, the Association of Corporate Counsel’s Houston Chapter and The Lawbook named Payne the 2025 Houston Corporate Counsel Award recipient for Senior Counsel of the Year for a Small Legal Department, which is five or fewer in-house attorneys.
Payne and other finalists of the 2025 Houston Corporate Counsel Awards will be honored May 22 at a celebration at the Four Seasons Hotel in Houston.
“Sarah brings a level of enthusiasm and passion that is infectious. Whether she is working on a particular matter or with a client, she inspires everyone around her by how much she cares,” said Maverick General Counsel Roy Mitchell. “Sarah is very much a businessperson first and a lawyer second. This allows her to serve as a strategic partner to her clients in-house, which ultimately leads to better counsel and successful outcomes.”
“Sarah’s biggest success over the past two years has been her ability to emerge as a leader during the sale of the company,” Mitchell said. “That process is always very stressful for employees to take part in, but Sarah handled it with poise, grace and strong leadership when we needed it most. She kept her team calm and focused on a successful outcome, which we ultimately achieved.”
Premium Subscriber Q&A: Sarah Payne discusses the traits she seeks in outside counsel, what outside counsel need to know when working with her and more.
Hackney, who nominated Payne for the award, said she “dives into the jack-of-all-trades job description” required of lawyers in smaller legal departments.
“Whether the task is managing an OSHA investigation, coordinating a JOA operatorship battle or supporting a corporate transaction, Sarah happily puts on the hat — or, as the case may be, hard hat,” Hackney said. “For example, when an expert needs a product sample, Sarah tracks down the people who can get it and persuades them to send ASAP. When possibly defamatory content appears on the company’s Google-earth images, Sarah is the one who figures out who you talk to at Google to fix that.”
Houston trial lawyer Brock Skelley said Payne has become an effective leader in a short period.
“Although Sarah did not have significant oil and gas experience when she started at Maverick, she quickly learned the subject matter, which allowed her to make significant contributions within the company early on,” said Skelley, who is a partner at Santoyo Wehmeyer. “Sarah is also very kind and attentive, which makes her an effective and approachable leader within Maverick’s legal department.”
In shifting from a trial lawyer to an in-house position, Payne said she prides herself on “being a businessperson first and a lawyer second.”
“I aim to always be a true partner to my friends and colleagues,” she said. “That shift in mindset — from fully briefed and cited memo to bullet points — was tough, as was getting comfortable with a certain amount of risk. But operating within a commercial environment adds a layer to the legal work that I find dynamic and rewarding and, a lot of the time, fun.”
“Our victories at trial are a testament to the cross-functional effort put forth by our accounting and land groups, engineers, field personnel and legal teams,” she said. “It feels good to share big wins with people you like and respect and work with shoulder to shoulder.”
Payne is a native Houstonian. Her mom is an educator. Her dad, of course, is a lawyer.
She earned her bachelor’s and master’s degrees in journalism at the University of Missouri before going to law school at South Texas College of Law Houston, where she graduated in 2013.
For nearly five years, Payne worked with her father Randal at Sullins Johnston Rohrbach & Magers practicing civil litigation. The elder Payne is now senior counsel at West, Webb, Allbritton & Gentry in College Station.
“I was lucky to practice with my dad for close to five years,” Payne said. “We fought mighty battles together and slayed our share of dragons, including a complex, multiparty trade secrets misappropriation case. The two of us represented the defendant, a departing executive, against his former employer in a dispute that involved a knock-down, drag-out injunction contest that went up on appeal. I drafted the appellate brief, and my dad argued it — I insisted — and we won.”
Payne said the move to in-house counsel never crossed her mind before being contacted by the Maverick recruiter, but she believes the in-house ecosystem — including working with nonlawyers — suits her personality.
“I was very happy in the courtroom and had always, wrongly, for whatever reason, considered ‘house’ lawyers a bit of inside cats,” she said. “But I took a chance, and Maverick took a chance on me being new to oil and gas, and I love it.”
During her five years at Maverick, she has successfully handled some major disputes, including:
- The successful resolution of an extremely complicated investor lawsuit that lasted from 2015 to 2024 and spanned multiple proceedings across state, federal and bankruptcy courts;
- Coordinated company investigations arising from a workplace fatality, which included overseeing responses to OSHA investigations and civil litigation arising from the accident; and
- Oversaw a legal dispute over operatorship of hundreds of wells in the Western Anadarko Basin, and the related commercial resolution.
But Maverick’s victory in the XTO case has been her crown jewel, according to lawyers.
“Sarah oversaw the dispute from the breakdown of commercial discussions all the way through trial,” Hackney said. “Crucially, she secured invaluable time and attention from senior accountants and landmen that allowed Maverick to present a winning case to the jury.”
“Sarah was in the courtroom with us for everything, including the verdict,” he said. “She was very actively involved in the trial process, working with us on witness prep and in giving feedback on the opening. Her feedback on communication issues is usually spot-on — if she thought an argument in our opening was too complicated and would lose the jury, we took her feedback to make it clearer. So, she really was a key part of the trial team.”
“Her instincts are excellent on the important question of what to call the plaintiff and defendant in a lawsuit,” he said. “Her copyediting always results in a better product than when it started, which is something I’ve heard is not true of all in-house counsel. She even came up with the name for one of the company’s subsidiaries.”
Oklahoma City lawyer Todd Woolery says Payne is collaborative but tough.
“Sarah knows when to compromise. Sarah knows when to fight,” he said. “Sarah shepherded her company through tough situations in the last two years. Whether coordinating internal investigations concerning fatalities, managing federal government inquiries or orchestrating successful litigation strategies, Sarah welcomed those challenges and came out on top.”
“Oh yeah, and when Oklahoma was burning because of uncontrolled wildfires, Sarah handled not only legal and public relations but also worked with operations, [health, safety and environmental officials] and management to masterfully manage a very dangerous and potentially devastating situation,” Woolery said. “This included remotely shutting in oil and gas wells to protect not only company personnel and company assets but also to protect first responders and Oklahomans.”
There is good news for companies seeking a great trial lawyer turned seasoned in-house counsel: Payne is about to be on the market for a new job thanks to Maverick’s recent $1.3 billion merger into Diversified Energy Company, which has an incumbent legal team.
Mitchell, Payne’s boss and GC at Maverick, said his colleague is one of the stars.
“Above all else, Sarah is loyal and acts with integrity in everything she does,” he said. “I know that I can always count on her as a colleague and a friend. I truly believe that everyone could benefit from having more people like Sarah on their teams.”
Fun Facts: Sarah Payne
- Favorite book: I like Vonnegut’s essays very much. No one writes like Vonnegut.
- Favorite movie or TV show: Succession and The Golden Girls, both for the wit.
- Favorite musician or band: Fleetwood Mac
- Favorite restaurant: Nonno’s Family Pizza Tavern is a favorite. I take the Wise Guy giardiniera pie. It’s especially good the next day, cold out the fridge.
- Hero in life: I draw inspiration from people who live life according to their own terms, like Alan Cumming and Anthony Bourdain.