Fasken Oil & Ranch, Ltd. v. Puig, No. 24-1033, _____ S.W.3d ____, 2026 WL 969268, 2026 Tex. LEXIS 289 (Tex. Apr. 10, 2026)…
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/ Commercial Law & Contracts, Energy & Utilities
A call from your land manager: the operator on a producing JOA filed Chapter 11 overnight. Wells are still flowing. A revenue check was supposed to land next week. The JOA gives you the right to remove a defaulting operator…
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/ Bankruptcy, Commercial Law & Contracts, Energy & Utilities
By now, most attorneys have certainly seen how AI can supplement one’s practice in any number of ways. But, what happens when AI is used against you? One trend I've encountered with striking regularity, sometimes daily, is the…
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/ Civil Procedure, Electronic Discovery, Science, Computers, & Technology
Unconventional drilling changed the economics of oil and gas development. It also changed the leases. Where once a simple habendum clause and a shut-in royalty provision could govern a vertical well for decades, horizontal…
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/ Commercial Law & Contracts, Energy & Utilities, Real Estate - Commercial
The Texas Supreme Court’s 2023 decision in Van Dyke v. Navigator Group, 668 S.W.3d 353 (Tex. 2023), touched off a wave of cases (and uncertainty) about how courts should read deeds of that certain “vintage” that used double…
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/ Commercial Law & Contracts, Energy & Utilities, Real Estate - Commercial
After decades of relatively static consumption, U.S. electricity demand is sharply rising. The scale of this demand is hard to overstate: In Texas, the Electric Reliability Council of Texas (“ERCOT”) estimated in 2025 that 205…
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/ Energy & Utilities
The latest Business Court opinion, again, reminds us of the importance of sufficiently pleading facts to support the underlying causes of action. This is an issue the Business Court continues to address, and something that…
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/ Business Organizations, Civil Procedure, Commercial Law & Contracts
This article explores Texas' updated Rule 5.05, adopted in October 2024, which created a new in-house counsel exception allowing out-of-state attorneys to perform legal work in Texas for their employer and its "organizational…
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/ Civil Procedure, Commercial Law & Contracts, Conflict of Laws, Mergers & Acquisitions
Texas civil litigators take note: after nearly three decades, summary judgment practice is getting a facelift. The Texas Supreme Court has issued a complete rewrite of Rule 166a of the Texas Rules of Civil Procedure, which is…
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/ Civil Procedure
They say lawyers never get picked for juries. I believed that—right up until I served 10 days as a juror in a civil trial involving aggravated sexual assault allegations and defamation counterclaims…
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/ Civil Procedure, Civil Remedies
The McGinnis Lochridge Oil and Gas Practice Group publishes Producer’s Edge to keep our clients and industry contacts informed on notable Texas case law, regulatory developments, and emerging legal issues affecting the oil and…
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/ Energy & Utilities, Environmental Law
The Texas Business Court has made it clear that in order to satisfy its amount in controversy jurisdictional threshold when only unpaid royalties are sought under a breach of contract claim, the amount in…
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/ Civil Procedure, Commercial Law & Contracts
In one of the most anticipated cases of 2025, the Texas Supreme Court’s decision in Cactus Water Services, LLC v. COG Operating, LLC, No. 23-0676, resolves—on its face—a straightforward question of first impression: who owns…
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/ Commercial Law & Contracts, Energy & Utilities
Claims for full royalty from a hypothetical offset well no longer hold under Texas law. After Coastal Oil, lessors must prove—through complex expert evidence—the specific royalty actually lost, not speculative windfalls, giving…
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/ Civil Remedies, Commercial Law & Contracts, Energy & Utilities
The San Antonio Court of Appeals clarified that TCPA protections do not extend to claims merely tied to regulatory filings. After the 2019 amendments, the protected communication must be the gravamen of the claim—mere but-for…
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/ Administrative Law, Civil Procedure, Energy & Utilities
