Paul Simpson

A registered Texas Professional Engineer, Paul Simpson worked as a petroleum engineer and an engineering manager before obtaining his law degree. Paul draws upon his industry background to represent producers, mineral owners, royalty owners, lessees, lessors and landowners in oil and gas matters. He handles disputes and tries lawsuits over royalty, pooling, marketing, drilling, production, drainage, mechanical failures, taxation, fraud, title, lease termination, engineering, bankruptcy and other issues. His geographical experience includes active oil and gas regions across Texas including Atascosa, Duval, Hardin, Jefferson, La Salle, Lavaca, Leon, Rusk, Webb and other counties.

Paul has also proposed legislation affecting the oil industry as well as Texas mineral and royalty owners, and testified before committees of the Texas Senate and the Texas House of Representatives regarding oil and gas matters.

Oil & Gas/Energy Litigation 

Paul’s noteworthy oil and gas experience includes:

• Served as lead counsel representing lessors in an oil and gas lease dispute concerning royalty and pooling-related claims in Jefferson County, Texas. The court reaffirmed previously entered orders and rendered a final judgment in favor of clients, largely affirmed on appeal through the Texas Supreme Court.
• Successfully representing South Texas landowners against a major oil company for failure to protect leaseholds against drainage.
• Successfully representing East Texas landowners in obtaining a jury verdict for breach of marketing obligations under multiple oil and gas leases.
• Winning a take-nothing jury verdict for a repair contractor in a suit over a destroyed electricity generating turbine.
• Obtaining favorable settlements for Central Texas landowners for damages resulting from adjacent gas well blowouts.
• Representing nearly 200 royalty owners in East Texas against producers for non-development and gas marketing claims.
• Obtaining a jury verdict for fraud in an oil and gas case in Jefferson County, Texas, ultimately affirmed on appeal through the Texas Supreme Court. This case was listed in VerdictSearch’s nationwide Top 100 Verdicts of 2008.
• Representing hundreds of East Texas royalty owners against a lessee producer and its gas marketing affiliate, and receiving favorable settlement in various royalty and gas marketing claims.
• Successfully representing mineral owners in title lawsuits.
• Representing South Texas landowners against a lessee and pipeline company for gas marketing, drainage, development and tortious interference. Paul obtained remands from federal court and favorable confidential settlements.
• Negotiating oil and gas leases, easements, assignments, pooling agreements and other contracts for lessors, lessees and landowners in numerous counties throughout Texas.
• Obtaining jury verdicts and summary judgments involving oil and gas leases in multiple lawsuits in South, East and Southeast Texas.
• Obtaining summary judgment and attorneys’ fees for purchaser in a federal court dispute against the seller of producing oil and gas properties.
• Representing operator and non-operator owners and obtaining settlement in a lawsuit against a service company over the alleged failure of downhole fracturing equipment.

General Litigation 

Paul’s commercial litigation experience includes:

• Successfully representing a lender at trial court and on appeal in suit on real estate loans.
• Successfully representing a builder in a suit seeking lost profits and punitive damages against the owner of a chemical plant tower that collapsed in a hurricane.
• Representing parties in patent infringement suits involving oil field drill bits, oil well pumping technology and cathodic protection of wells.
• Obtaining summary judgments and attorneys’ fees awards in extensive motion practice in state and federal courts involving contracts and other disputes.
• Briefing and arguing mandamus actions and appeals on both sides of the docket in multiple Texas appellate courts and the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit.

• Texas Supreme Court Settles Long-running Multi-million Dollar Case
  June 26, 2018

• Co-Presenter, Perspectives of the Mineral Owner and Landman, 62nd Annual American Association of Professional Landmen Meeting
  July 2016

• Law360 Quotes Paul Simpson in "Texas Oil Royalty Owner Faces Reduced Damages In $21M Suit"
  March 16, 2016

• Moderator, Role of Government & Markets in Forming Energy Policy, 8th Texas Energy Law Symposium, Texas Journal of Oil, Gas & Energy Law, Austin, Texas
  January 2013

• Author, The Polluted Primrose Path, Texas Lawyer
  May 2005

• Author and Speaker, Implications of the Pool Case on Adverse Possession Law in Texas, 55th Annual Program on Oil and Gas Law
  February 2004

• Author and Speaker, Legislative Update and Current Developments, Architect/Engineer Liability and Practice in Texas
  September 2002

• Author and Speaker, Interest Due Under Texas Oil and Gas Leases, Oil and Gas Law Seminar, American Institute of Business Law
  May 2002

• Author and Speaker, HECI v. Neel: The Discovery Rule, Implied Covenants and the Record, 27th Annual Ernest E. Smith Oil, Gas, & Mineral Law Institute
  March 2001

• Author and Speaker, HECI Exploration v. Neel and Other Royalty Owner Topics, American Association of Mineral Owners
  September 1999

• State Bar of Texas: Litigation Section; Oil, Gas, and Energy Resources Law Section
• Houston Bar Association: Litigation Section; Oil, Gas, and Mineral Law Section
• Society of Petroleum Engineers
• American Petroleum Institute (Standardization Committee, Former Member)
• Harris County Republican Party (County Chair 2014-2020)
• St. Catherine’s Montessori School (Board President 2001-2005)
• Election Judge/Precinct Chair, Harris County (1990-2010)
• St. Vincent de Paul Pastoral Council (Chair 2004-2007)
• Incarnate Word Academy (Board of Advisors 2010-2014)
• Boy Scout Troop 505 (Troop Committee Chair 2006-2013)
• State Bar of Texas: Member, Pattern Jury Charge Overview Committee (2017-present)