David Castro, 2010 Annual Oil and Gas Law Conference Co-Chair

David M. Castro is Associate General Counsel in charge of Exploration & Production Litigation World Wide with Hess Corporation. He holds a J.D. degree from the University of Texas Law School. His prior experience includes: Two years Assistant District Attorney for Harris County, and two years as Staff attorney with Tesoro Petroleum. He has received numerous recognitions such as Fulbright & Jaworski Outstanding 1st Year Student Award; Andrews & Kurth Outstanding Extra Circular Contribution Award; Consul Award, and he was Editor, American Journal of Criminal Law. He is admitted to practice in the U.S. Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals and various Federal District Courts in Texas.

Greg Copeland, Energy Public Policy Task Force Chair

A past member of the IEL Executive, Greg returns this year as the Energy Public Policy Task Force Chair.

J. Gregory Copeland is a Partner with the law firm of Baker Botts in Houston, Texas. He is the senior trial lawyer in the firm's energy practice group, ranked first in the U.S. in 2007 by Energy Law360. He has 35 years' experience in complex litigation in all sectors of the energy industry: oil, gas, gasoline, lignite, coal, and nuclear fuels. His litigation experience includes investigations, arbitrations, and trials in state and federal court in over 15 different states. He has been recognized as a leading energy litigator by numerous publications and organizations. He has been engaged to represent clients in various types of suits such as royalty disputes; oil and gas contracts and operations; offshore drilling rigs, production platforms, and pipelines; coal leases; gas storage facilities; seismic data; wholesale natural gas trading; retail natural gas; electric utility operations; nuclear power plant construction and operation; transmission lines; gasoline; petrochemicals; and mechanical and metallurgical failures. He holds a J.D. degree from the University of Texas and a B.A. in Economics from the University of Oklahoma. He is a member of the American Bar Association, Houston Bar Association, and Texas Bar Foundation. He is admitted to practice in the U.S. District Courts for the Southern and Eastern Districts of Texas.

Greg Copeland

Thomas T. Hutcheson, Oil & Gas Practice Committee Chair

Thomas T. Hutcheson is a partner with the law firm of Winstead in Houston, Texas. He has more than 33 years of trial and appellate experience representing clients in major cases, with a heavy emphasis on oil, gas and energy litigation. He has extensive experience in the management, coordination and handling of large, complex cases in both state and federal courts as well as arbitration proceedings and mediations. He has tried, arbitrated and/or mediated almost all types of civil disputes, including antitrust, banking, business and commerce code, deceptive trade practices, deed restriction, employment, energy, environmental, insurance coverage, oil and gas, real estate, RICO, securities fraud, commodities fraud, title insurance, trade secret and usury cases. He holds a J.D. degree from the University of Texas and a B.A. from the University of Virginia.

His experience includes: Representation of major oil and gas companies and pipeline companies in nationwide class actions, litigation with the State of Texas, and suits filed by private royalty owners involving alleged underpayment of royalties and severance taxes; representation of more than 40 domestic and foreign oil and gas companies in antitrust cases involving bid rigging by 3 providers of offshore "heavy lift" marine construction services; representation of major energy company in joint venture/partnership disputes regarding development of overseas oil and gas concessions; representation of major oil company in qui tam litigation with the federal government, Indian tribes and several relators involving alleged underpayment of oil and gas royalties on federal and Indian lands; representation of major oil companies in both litigation and arbitration proceedings against proposed purchasers of offshore Louisiana and Texas oil and gas properties and gas processing plant; representation of working interest owners in royalty and accounting disputes with royalty, overriding royalty and nets profits interests owners; representation of major energy companies in environmental contamination suits including one involving 220-home residential subdivision; representation of offshore drilling company and major oil companies in antitrust cases alleging conspiracies to fix the wages and benefits of their employees; representation of oil and gas companies in numerous class actions and private royalty owner cases seeking damages for alleged failure to properly develop oil and gas units; representation of offshore operators in bankruptcy proceedings involving MMS liens, plugging and abandonment issues, and preferential purchase right disputes.

He is admitted to practice in all U.S. District and Bankruptcy courts in Texas; U.S. Court of Appeals, Fifth, Tenth and Eleventh Circuits. He is a member of the College of the State Bar of Texas; American Bar Association; Houston Bar Association; Texas Bar Foundation; Houston Bar Foundation; and Houston Producers’ Forum.

William C. Lowrey, Vice Chair

Bill Lowrey is Senior Vice President, General Counsel and Corporate Secretary with Shell Oil Company. His prior position was Associate General Counsel Trading/Gas & Power. He has supported a number of Shell merger and acquisition transactions, both within and outside the U.S., and has been the managerial focal point for the transactional lawyers in the U.S. since 2003. His prior work experience with Shell covers virtually every facet of Shell’s business including Mining, EP, Chemical, Environmental, Corporate Transactions, Legal-London, and Managing Counsel, Oil Products. He holds a J.D. degree from Baylor Law School. His prior experience includes a position as briefing attorney at the Texas Court of Civil Appeals. He is a member of the State Bar of Texas and the American Bar Association.

Bill Lowrey

John (Jack) E. Lynch, Jr., Vice Chair

Jack Lynch is U.S. General Counsel with BP and is also responsible for the provision of legal services to BP’s global exploration & production operations as well as its global energy trading functions. He is accountable for a 200 person staff located in 25 countries. He holds a J.D. degree from Case Western Reserve University School of Law where he was elected an Executive Editor of the Law Review. He has completed BP-sponsored programs at the University of Cambridge and at Stanford University’s School of Business. He holds a Bachelor of Arts with Honors in Economics from Hamilton College in New York.

He began his career with BP in 1998 at the Cleveland, Ohio office where he was the General Counsel of BP America. In this position, he coordinated legal support for the E&P, Retail and Chemicals sectors in North America. In January 1999 thru Dec 2002 he was in Houston and served as Associate General Counsel, E&P, GP&R for the Western Hemisphere. Beginning January 2003 thru July 2006, he was the Associate General Counsel, E&P, GRS&T, Global, based in Sunbury, England. From August, 2006 until December 2008, he served as Group Compliance & Ethics Officer at BP’s head office in London, where he was responsible for promoting, overseeing and building the Group’s capability to deliver compliance with externally defined laws and regulations, the Code of Conduct and related Group Standards.

Prior to that, his prior experience includes: Executive Vice President, General Counsel & Secretary of a publicly held Fortune 500 transportation and logistics company. He served as Chief Legal Officer and as the management liaison to the Board of Directors and its Committees, including with respect to a multi-billion dollar transaction. He also spent 10 years as a Commercial Law Trial Partner with a major US-based international law firm where he specialized in significant business and commercial litigations, including finance, antitrust, healthcare, contracts, procurement, product liability and environmental regulation. Before joining the firm, he was a Law Clerk to US District Court Judge John M. Manos (N.D. Ohio).

Steven P. Otillar, Young Energy Professionals Committee Chair

Steven Otillar is a partner in the Energy, Chemicals, Mining and Infrastructure Group in the Houston office of Baker & McKenzie. His transactional practice is centered around the areas of oil and gas and renewable energy, with a particular emphasis on project development. He has represented clients with the development, financing, construction, acquisition, and divestiture of natural gas pipelines, conventional and unconventional oil and gas exploration and production properties, power plants and renewable energy projects. He has negotiated and drafted joint venture agreements, joint operating agreements, participation agreements, alliance agreements farmouts, drilling services agreements, charter parties, and joint bidding agreements relating to the development of major energy and infrastructure projects, as well as the underlying tender, engineering, construction, and procurement documentation. He has also worked with multilateral agencies on infrastructure privatization and concession projects in Latin America, Africa and Europe. In addition to representing project operators, sponsors and developers, he has represented financial institutions with respect to financing the acquisition and development of oil and gas properties, infrastructure, and related energy projects. He holds a J.D. degree from the University of Houston, cum laude and is a member of the order of the coif. He received his B.A., cum laude, with honors, from Southwestern University.

He is the Director of the US Region of the Association of International Petroleum Negotiators and Chair of the Young Energy Professionals for the Center for American and International Law, Institute for Energy Law. He is a member of the Texas Bar Association’s International Law Section (former Executive Council member); Houston Bar Association’s International Law Section (former Chairman); Energy Bar Association (former Houston Chapter Executive Board member); and International Board of Directors of Amigos de las Americas.

Steven Otillar

Robert K. Reeves, Vice Chair

Robert K. Reeves is Senior Vice President, General Counsel and Chief Administrative Officer for Anadarko Petroleum Corporation, one of the world’s largest independent oil and gas exploration and production companies. He joined Anadarko in March 2004 as Senior Vice President, Corporate Affairs and Law and added the role of Chief Governance Officer in September 2004. He has over 25 years of legal and management experience and is responsible for the company’s legal, government relations, information technology and administration functions. As Chief Governance Officer, he is also responsible for the company’s compliance with the corporate governance rules and regulations of the New York Stock Exchange, the Securities and Exchange Commission and the Sarbanes-Oxley Act. Mr. Reeves’ executive management skills draw from his experience in litigation, merger transactions, securities offerings, business development, acquisitions and divestitures. He holds a J.D. degree and B.S. in business administration from Louisiana State University.

His prior experience includes: six years as Executive Vice President, General Counsel and Secretary for Ocean Energy, Inc.; four years as Senior Vice President, General Counsel and Secretary for Flores & Rucks, Inc., a predecessor to Ocean Energy; eleven years as Partner in the Energy Section of Onebane Law Firm of Lafayette, Louisiana. He is a member of the Texas and Louisiana State Bar Associations, the American Bar Association and the American Corporate Counsel Association. He serves on the Board of Directors of Key Energy Services., Inc, St. Luke’s Episcopal Health System and Family Services of Greater Houston.

Harry W. Sullivan, Jr., International Practice Committee Chair

Harry W. Sullivan, Jr. is a member of the Legal Department of ConocoPhillips, based in Houston, Texas, where he provides legal advice and support for ConocoPhillips’ international energy activities. He has experience on numerous worldwide upstream and midstream projects, including major natural gas development projects in Indonesia, China, Qatar and Mozambique; the first EOR project in Algeria; the “LUKARCO” joint venture between ARCO and the Russian oil company LUKOIL; and exploration and production projects in more than 25 countries. He holds a J.D. degree from Louisiana State University’s Paul M. Herbert School of Law and an LL.M. degree from SMU’s Dedman School of Law. His prior experience includes: Of Counsel to Thompson & Knight L.L.P. in its global energy group; fifteen years with Atlantic Richfield Company (ARCO), where he was Chief Counsel for ARCO’s International Oil and Gas Division; and five years with Sun Oil Company. Mr. Sullivan has taught at Texas Wesleyan School of Law, SMU’s Cox School of Business, the University of Texas at Arlington and El Centro College. His legal education includes training in both civil law and common law. He is licensed to practice law in the states of Louisiana and Texas, and admitted to practice by the United States Supreme Court and numerous U.S. Federal Courts. Additionally, he is board certified in Oil, Gas and Mineral Law in Texas.

Harry Sullivan

Sustaining member Beirne, Maynard & Parsons, L.L.P. added James E. Smith (Houston) as an advisory board member.

Sustaining member Covington and Burling LLP added Thomas L. Cubbage, Oscar M. Garibaldi and William L. Massey (Washington, D.C.) as advisory board members.

Liskow & Lewis increased their membership level to the Sustaining level. Jana L. Grauberger, Everard A. Marseglia, Robert Theriot (Houston), Jonathan A. Hunter, Joe B. Norman (New Orleans), Jamie D. Rhymes and Lawrence P. Simon, Jr. (Lafayette) are the advisory board members.

Sustaining member Mayer Brown LLP added Mark Biskamp (Houston) as an advisory board member.

TOTAL E&P USA, INC. increased their membership level to the Sustaining level. Lorena Ferreiro, David Houck and Rochelle Pleasant join Dawn Lannin, Tom Ryan and Adesina Salawu as advisory board members.(not pictured)

Steven Boss

Katie Stepp

New Academic/Government members are Chilenye Nwapi (University of British Columbia, Vancouver) and City of Houston (James P. Cargas, Houston)(not pictured).