We’ve been in the oil and gas industry for over 30 years. Energy work has a natural crossover with the firm’s maritime and insurance expertise, which is lacking in many other energy firms. This gives us an advantage, but our energy practice is by no means limited to maritime or insurance work and is long-standing in its own right.
Over the years, our work has spread from the North Sea around the world, both on and offshore, encompassing construction projects and operations in all the major oil and gas centres, including West Africa, North and South America, Europe, the Gulf region, India and Asia Pacific.
Our lawyers deal with oil and gas contracts, the consequences of operational breakdowns, and problems and disasters, like the Piper Alpha oil platform loss.
Simon Hems | Solicitor
BA (Hons) Law and Criminology,
As I’ve become more senior, my work has become more focused, so it’s probably 70% energy now. One of the advantages is being able to travel all over the world, and I was doing that within six months of starting at
the firm.
When I was a trainee, I was in the Far East and
I got involved in energy cases quite early in my training and I loved it. I made a point of finding out who the energy partners were and asking them for work.
It was the type of work that we do which appealed to me. We often advise on major construction or project installation work, so a lot of it is very technical and very engineering-based. You’re learning about how things work, how these resources are actually taken out of the ground and the processes they go through. You’re immersing yourself in somebody else’s expertise and learning it for yourself, and then using that knowledge to sort out our clients’ problems. It’s fascinating.
Charles Lockwood | Partner
LLB Newcastle University | LPC College of Law, York | Joined the firm in 1997
In my first week a partner gave me a file and asked me to read it and get to grips with the framework of the dispute. I read through it and researched a few things. He asked me a few questions to make sure I understood it correctly and then he asked me to settle it.
He set me some parameters and sent me off to see what I could do. I made a few phone calls, set out our position and achieved a good settlement for the client.
For the first few years after qualification, I worked on as broad a range of cases as I could. Then I gradually began to focus more on energy and energy insurance, partly because that’s where some of my strongest relationships were in the firm, and also because I was involved in some great energy cases which really grabbed my interest.
The vast majority of my work is international. I’ve spent five weeks in Nigeria over the past 12 months, had three trips to the United States and been to Europe a couple of times. Energy is an international business and the travelling is just part of the job.