Serving the industry since 2005.

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George has practiced oil and gas law on behalf of industry clients since 2005, primarily in the Appalachian Basin region that includes the Marcellus and Utica/Point Pleasant shale plays.

 

George has a unique understanding of the oil and gas industry from a legal, land, technical, environmental, regulatory, policy, and operations perspective.  He is well-known as an authority on oil and gas issues in Pennsylvania, serving as an adjunct professor of Oil and Gas Law at Widener Commonwealth Law School and writing frequently on emerging issues and trends in the oil and gas industry. 

 

George’s law reviews, book chapters, articles, and other publications on oil and gas topics, including A Primer on Oil and Gas Law in the Marcellus Shale States, A Review of the Implied Covenant of Development in the Shale Gas Era, The Law of Oil & Gas in Pennsylvania (Implied Covenants, Chapter 6) and Environmental Law & Practice (Water Resources, Chapter 7), have been cited with approval by the Pennsylvania Supreme Court (on two occasions), the Ohio Supreme Court, the Texas Supreme Court, the Second and Ninth Circuit Courts of Appeal, various federal district courts, state courts, and numerous law reviews and treatises. George has testified before the Pennsylvania General Assembly’s Senate Committee on Environmental Resources and Energy regarding oil and gas royalties in Pennsylvania and has been interviewed and quoted by publications such as Law360, Central Penn Business Journal, and the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette regarding developing issues in oil and gas law.  

 

For more than 16 years, George has provided litigation, regulatory, and transactional services to upstream, midstream, and downstream clients. He has advised on virtually every significant legal issue in Pennsylvania - whether in the context of litigation, regulatory compliance, or transactional matters - involving the oil and gas industry, including:

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• oil and gas ownership ​​

• the law of capture​

• all oil and gas lease provisions​

• royalty and bonus payments

• post-production costs

• fractured ownership of oil and gas and other mineral interests 

• surface use

• voluntary and forced pooling 

• seismic testing rights

• physical and seismic trespass 

• gas migration and water pollution allegations

• lease drafting

• well-site development on private and government owned lands

• streambed oil and gas ownership

• due diligence on leasehold acquisitions

• continuous drilling obligations and drilling commitments

• lease amendments and ratifications

• lease addenda for special provisions

• surface use agreements

• easement and road-use agreements

• assignments

• unit declarations and amendments

• MSAs

• drilling contracts

• joint operating agreements

• farmouts

• service agreements

• ORRI agreements

• NRI agreements 

• NPRI agreements

• gas purchase agreements