V&E: Still the King of the Oil Patch

© 2015 The Texas Lawbook.By Natalie Posgate HOUSTON (Feb. 11) – As 2015 winded down, Alan Beck and Jeff Floyd led a team of Vinson & Elkins lawyers representing El Paso-based Western Refining in a $2.43 billion merger with Arizona-based Northern Tier Energy. The Western Refining transaction was the fourth largest deal handled by Texas lawyers in the fourth quarter, as well as the final 10-digit transaction of the year. The fact that V&E was the legal adviser was almost expected. Multibillion-dollar mergers and acquisitions in the oil patch – as Geico commercials might say – it’s what V&E does.“We believe we have the reputation as the world’s leading energy law firm – and rightly so,” V&E chairman Mark Kelly said in an interview with The Texas Lawbook. The Houston-based law firm has dominated M&A charts for law firms representing Texas-based businesses for as long as such accounting as taken place, thanks to its strength in advising clients in the energy sector. As a result, V&E reported record revenues and profits in 2014, as the lawyers in its Texas offices generated more than $1 million in revenues each. But many legal industry observers and competitors privately predicted V&E’s legacy of…