Global law firm K&L Gates has taken a team of four energy partners and one energy counsel in Texas from Winstead PC including Jeff King, chair of the energy law practice group. Prior to moving to Winstead in 2011, King and three others — partners Jamie Bryan and Chris Brown and counsel Mitchell Murphy — all spent their careers with K&L Gates and its legacy Texas firm Hughes & Luce. They are joined in their return to K&L Gates by partner Elizabeth Tiblets. Together, the group’s expertise spans a diverse range of energy litigation and transactional matters across the oil and gas, petrochemical, renewable energy and power sectors.

Multi-faceted energy industry

Jim Segerdahl, K&L Gates’ global managing partner, commented: 'Texas is a crucially important and strategic market to our clients and our firm, especially with respect to the multi-faceted energy industry. The addition of this talented and experienced group, many of whom are rejoining K&L Gates, is a major boost to our already strong capacity in this area. We are delighted to have this formidable group as part of our team and available to clients with needs in Texas and throughout the US.'

Impressive roster of clients

Randel Young, a global leader for the firm’s energy, infrastructure and resources practice area, added: 'This team’s return to K&L Gates significantly strengthens our growing Texas and US oil, gas, and energy disputes practice with a wealth of experience in handling litigation, arbitration, and transactional matters for clients in the upstream, midstream, and downstream and related service sectors of the US onshore and offshore oil and gas industry. They have experience in virtually all the major oil and gas basins in the US and add an exciting and impressive roster of clients to our national oil and gas practice. We look forward to them building their practices and integrating into the firm’s platform.'

Expansion strategy

The arrival of the lawyers is part of an expansion strategy that has seen the addition of a number of new lawyers to the firm’s energy, infrastructure and resources practice over the past year, including London-based global disputes and transaction partners Jeremy Farr, Charles Lockwood, and Clare Kempkens, Houston-based global LNG partner Daniel LeFort, Fort Worth and Houston midstream/pipeline litigation and condemnation partners Joseph Regan and Adam Plumbley, Houston oil and gas of counsel Zachary Ferreira, New York and Houston partner Toshi Yoshida and Washington, DC, partner Elias Hinckley and counsel James Wrathall.