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Alex Msimang has around 30 years of experience advising clients on the full range of energy-related projects and transactions and he has worked on all sides of the table. Alex focuses a majority of his work on global energy M&A – principally in the oil and gas sector – with the balance made up of project development and regulatory advisory work. Over the course of his career, Alex has come to appreciate how the different pieces of his practice inform and strengthen each other. Alex advises clients across the globe. In the UK, he helps them navigate the highly sophisticated and regulated energy market and he brings that experience to bear on projects across Africa, the Middle East, Latin America and Europe.

Paul’s practice focuses on real estate, private equity, and general business transactions. His experience includes representation of a wide variety of clients engaged in many types of real estate, financing, and other business transactions, as well as institutional lenders, investors, and public companies in the acquisition and disposition of commercial property of all product types. Paul also has experience in commercial leasing, including sale-leasebacks and build-to-suit leases, lease disputes, and general corporate representation. He currently represents several large nationwide real estate private equity funds in various acquisitions, financing, development, workout, and sale transactions. Paul also represents institutional landlords and tenants across the country.

Pat is an accomplished trial lawyer, representing clients on both sides in commercial litigation (jury trials, bench trials, and arbitration) and the defense side of multi-district tort litigation. He is one of a handful of lawyers in Texas who is a member of all four of the prominent national trial lawyer organizations: he is a fellow of the American College of Trial Lawyers and the International Academy of Trial Lawyers, and a member of the American Board of Trial Advocates and the International Society of Barristers. Clients note that Pat “is an excellent lawyer [and] he’s very comfortable in court,” and “is a great trial lawyer with a strong state and national reputation.” (Chambers USA 2023).

For more than 25 years, trial lawyer Don Griffin has represented his clients in multimillion-dollar lawsuits in Texas state and federal courts. He is a trial lawyer with extensive courtroom experience and numerous jury trial verdicts. His practice focuses primarily on assisting property owners and developers subject to condemnation by government authorities. Don has appeared before the Texas Supreme Court multiple times on behalf of his clients, most recently in February 2018 (W.A. “Andy” Meyers v. JDC/Firethorne, 548 S.W.3d 477 (Tex.2018)). Among his most high-profile verdicts was a February 2018 judgment against the State of Texas that resulted in an amount 1,837% above the State’s $1,300,000 compensation number after a three-week jury trial in Harris County — the largest reported jury verdict ever on behalf of a property owner in a Texas condemnation case. On May 28, 2020, the Houston First Court of Appeals issued a unanimous opinion affirming in all aspects the $28.8 million jury verdict obtained for his client CC Telge Road, L.P. See State v. CC Telge Road, L.P., No. 01-18-00416-CV, 2020 WL 2782370 (Tex. App.—Houston [1st Dist.] May 28, 2020, n.p.h.).

Jay advises natural gas and liquids pipeline and storage clients on various complex regulatory issues, regulatory compliance matters, and federal energy policy trends. He also focuses on administrative litigation, representing regulated pipelines and storage companies before various federal and state agencies, including the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC), in rate cases, certificate proceedings, complaint proceedings and audit and investigation matters. Jay advises clients regarding the jurisdictional and regulatory landscape for energy asset mergers, acquisitions, joint ventures and other business combinations. He also counsels clients regarding contracting for the transportation, purchase and sale of energy commodities.

David represents issuers and underwriters in connection with capital markets financings, with a focus on high-yield and other debt securities offerings. He also has significant experience in convertible debt and equity offerings, and related equity derivative products. David has particular experience in the energy industry, having worked on numerous transactions involving oil and gas companies, midstream companies, refiners, and oilfield service companies. He also has significant experience in the chemical, shipping, automotive, homebuilding, electronics, and airline industries.

Mike Telle is a seasoned corporate lawyer who focuses on mergers and acquisitions, capital markets and other transactions for a variety of clients in the energy sector.

James heads our International Dispute Resolution practice, and focuses his practice on the arbitration and litigation of international commercial and investor-state disputes, and counseling in matters involving public international law and treaties. He acts both as counsel and as arbitrator.

Casey advises and represents clients in a wide variety of matters relating to environmental laws. In transactional contexts, he has structured allocations of liability in mergers and acquisitions, assisted clients in creative approaches to restructuring environmental requirements, and led the conduct of diligence and negotiations on environmental requirements in connection with asset sales and project financings within the United States and internationally.

An accomplished lawyer with more than 30 years of experience, George advises and represents clients on business-critical environmental matters. His broad environmental law practice includes environmental litigation, environmental enforcement defense, emergency response, and environmental compliance counseling.

Shelley has extensive experience in capital markets and securities offerings, merger and acquisition transactions, and general corporate matters, with a particular emphasis on the energy industry.

Lewis has been practicing environmental law since 1993, and has a broad range of environmental law experience encompassing litigation, business transactions, and client counseling. His litigation practice includes toxic tort, Clean Air Act, Clean Water Act, Resource Conservation and Recovery Act, and a multitude of other statutory and common law claims in both state and federal courts. Lewis’ litigation practice also encompasses a broad range of class action and complex litigation experience arising from toxic tort, products liability, insurance, consumer protection, and other types of actions. He has substantial experience addressing complex scientific and engineering issues in the litigation context, and has worked with nationally recognized scientific experts in a number of different fields to address failure analysis investigations and to develop related expert testimony.

John represents companies in the energy industry in transactional and regulatory matters, primarily focused on the natural gas and electric power industries. He is one of a handful of lawyers in the country who is ranked by Chambers USA for his regulatory work in both electricity and oil and gas.

T. Mark Kelly, Mark Kelly

Marisa Giles is an experienced lead litigator who represents businesses and individuals in high-stakes disputes, including contract suits, construction litigation, securities litigation, tax controversies, restructuring litigation, and complex indemnity and insurance matters.

Vinson & Elkins is saddened to announce that our beloved colleague Glen Rosenbaum passed away peacefully in his sleep on February 28 at the age of 75.

Mike navigates clients through the utility regulatory landscape at the state and federal level, with a particular emphasis on Texas. He has more than 30 years of experience in contested case, rulemaking and regulatory compliance matters before the Public Utility Commission of Texas, the Texas Railroad Commission, the Federal Communications Commission and other state and federal regulatory agencies.

Doug Bland works with the development, purchase and sale of energy-related projects and assets. For more than 35 years, he has represented private equity firms and large and small companies in the upstream, midstream, downstream and renewable energy sectors in a variety of transactions, including joint ventures, mergers and acquisitions, as well as project financing for everything from pipelines to power plants. In the midstream sector, Doug structures transactions involving refining and petrochemicals; natural gas gathering, processing, storage and transportation; and oil and condensate transportation, storage and terminalling. He works in the upstream space facilitating large shale development joint ventures, and acquisitions and sales of oil and gas properties. Doug also handles transactions involving renewable energy sources such as wind and solar power in addition to other electric power projects. Though his practice is based largely in North America, his matters have also taken him around the world, from Argentina to Turkmenistan. Throughout his career, Doug has been recognized by multiple legal publications, including Chambers USA, where a reviewer called him “smart and thoughtful” and a “zealous advocate for his clients.”

Jim is a trial attorney with more than 35 years of experience counseling clients with wide-ranging business litigation needs. His practice encompasses lawsuits, appeals, and domestic and international arbitrations across multiple industries.

George is Co-Practice Group Leader of V&E’s Condemnation and Land Use Litigation practice group. Selected as Best Lawyers of America’s Houston Eminent Domain Lawyer of the Year for 2019, George’s trial practice is principally focused on the representation of private property owners involved in eminent domain lawsuits wherein the State, counties, municipalities, and other government authorities seek to acquire his clients’ property. He has extensive first chair jury trial experience confirmed by his invited membership in the American Board of Trial Advocates (ABOTA). George has represented owners of properties of all types, including retail, commercial, industrial, and residential properties. George has been selected by his peers for inclusion in the publications Best Lawyers in America and by Texas Super Lawyers for his extensive experience in Eminent Domain and Condemnation Law.

Robert Kimball advises public and private companies on capital markets, mergers and acquisitions, and corporate governance matters. In a career spanning more than three decades, Robert has counseled clients on domestic and cross-border transactions across a wide array of industries including airlines and aviation, computer and information technology, energy, finance, life sciences, manufacturing, and telecommunications.

John Lynch focuses on federal income tax aspects of domestic and international transactions, primarily those involving energy and infrastructure.

Chris’ practice involves all aspects of commercial lending and financing transactions. Chris has been active, both globally and domestically, on behalf of commercial banks, private equity funds, retailers and energy companies. His work includes the financing of energy assets, real estate and nonperforming loans, retail businesses, and the development and financing of energy and infrastructure projects.

W. Creighton Smith advises clients on a broad range of private investment transactions, including private equity investments, mergers and acquisitions, joint ventures, line of equity investments, and general corporate matters. These clients include private equity funds, their portfolio companies, public and private companies, management teams, family offices and high-net-worth individuals.

Pat Breeland is a leader in the field of advising institutional investors on alternative investments. Since 2002, Pat has represented institutional investors in more than 650 investment transactions. In addition, he has supervised other attorneys as they handled hundreds of investment transactions.

Venture Capital and Mergers & Acquisitions lawyer Wes Jones has represented public and private companies in corporate transactions since 1995. Wes has extensive experience working with venture capital firms and their portfolio companies in the technology, energy and life sciences industries, with a focus on emerging and venture-backed technology companies. In the mergers and acquisitions space, Wes represents both private equity funds and other strategic buyers, as well as emerging companies in their liquidation events or IPOs.

Jeff is a Chambers-ranked litigator with over two decades of experience in shareholder litigation and government and internal investigations. Jeff represents companies, officers, directors, and auditors in securities litigation, DOJ and SEC investigations, and internal investigations. Jeff also advises clients on various cybersecurity issues, including governance, incident response, and data breach notifications. He has tried cases in both state and federal courts and before private arbitration panels.

David Peck serves as head of V&E’s Tax & Executive Compensation & Benefits Department. He has more than 20 years’ experience advising companies on tax planning and structuring related to complicated transactions, leveraging his deep understanding of tax law to develop smart strategies to save his clients tax dollars.

Chris Strong is an accomplished member of V&E London’s Energy Transactions & Projects practice who represents corporate clients around the world on transactions in the energy and natural resources space.

Vanessa is General Counsel of Vinson & Elkins and a partner in the Firm. Vanessa was appointed as General Counsel following a twenty-five-year career as an employment litigator and counselor, representing clients in all aspects of employment law. Prior to assuming her role as General Counsel of the Firm, Vanessa served as Deputy General Counsel.

An accomplished lawyer with more than 30 years of experience, Paul is a partner in the Restructuring and Reorganization practice group. During his career, Paul has handled a multitude of complex chapter 11 bankruptcy cases and out-of-court restructuring matters. He regularly represents public and private companies, and advises their respective board of directors and senior management on developing solutions for reorganizing capital structures and business operations. His clients include companies in a range of industries, including cryptocurrency, energy, distribution, manufacturing, renewable power, retail, and telecommunications.

Shane advises employers, executives and management teams on the tax and securities law implications of compensatory arrangements for a range of clients, with a special emphasis on private equity sponsored work and the complex tax issues associated with golden parachute payments and transfers of property for services. He also guides boards of directors and compensation committees on executive compensation matters, and assists public and private partnerships, corporations and REITs in designing, drafting and implementing severance and retention plans and equity-based compensation arrangements.

Ben represents clients in complicated environmental disputes, drawing on his more than 20 years of experience to guide companies through civil litigation, civil and criminal enforcement defense, and administrative hearings. He also advises companies regarding complex site remediation issues, internal investigations, responses to catastrophic incidents, and regulatory issues. In the ESG space, Ben has advised an international mining company regarding important sustainability issues, most notably in the development and implementation of a major new international standard for mining operations.

Described as “commercial and brilliant from a technical perspective,” Doug is a nationally recognized attorney with an extensive corporate practice, advising on mergers and acquisitions, capital markets and other strategic transactions. Doug’s clients classify him as “one of the preeminent energy lawyers across capital markets” having “…seen every type of transaction.” (Chambers USA, 2023) He is one of a few attorneys in the country to be recognized by Chambers USA for both capital markets and corporate M&A.

David D’Alessandro is head of the Executive Compensation and Benefits practice, where he advises companies on the implementation of executive contracts with a particular focus on the tax and securities issues arising from executive compensation arrangements. David’s clients include both private and publicly traded companies in a wide range of industries, from energy to financial services. His practice entails both mergers and acquisitions work and day-to-day counseling. He regularly advises clients on matters involving stock options, restricted stock, profits interests, performance-based compensation arrangements, golden parachutes, 409A issues and Securities Act and Exchange Act compliance as well as the structuring of employment, change in control and severance agreements.

Dave Johnson is Head of the Government Contracts/Export Controls and National Security practice, Managing Partner of the Washington, D.C. office, and a member of the firm’s Management Committee. He works with companies of all sizes and in all industries to resolve contract disputes with the government and to manage legal complications that may arise from exports as well as inbound foreign investment.