Kuntz Conference 2024

ABOUT KUNTZ

Held annually, the Kuntz Conference is a Continuing Legal Education event and one of the nation’s largest specialized gatherings of experts on natural resources law and policy. It attracts hundreds of legal professionals and landmen from across the country from the oil, gas, and natural resources sectors.

The Kuntz Conference is named for former OU Law Dean (1965-1970) Eugene Kuntz and was born from his extensive scholarship, practice, and contributions in the field of oil and gas and natural resources law. In 1962, he authored Kuntz, A Treatise on the Law of Oil and Gas, which is still extensively cited by courts across the country.

Following his tenure at OU Law, Kuntz's students endowed a prestigious faculty position in his honor, the Eugene Kuntz Chair of Law in Oil, Gas, and Natural Resources, which Professors Richard Hemingway and Owen Anderson have held. This respected faculty position continues to this day.

Currently, Associate Professor Joseph A. Schremmer leads OU Law's oil and gas program. He teaches oil and gas law and directs OU Law's Oil and Gas, Natural Resources, and Energy Center. Schremmer is the sole update and revision author of Kuntz's treatise.

Also, in conjunction with the conference annually, the Oil and Gas Reception is held, honoring an exceptional individual in the field of natural resources law and policy. This outstanding person is bestowed with the Eugene Kuntz Award. Since 1993, 29 individuals have received this honor.

Join us for the Oil and Gas Reception, recognizing this year’s Eugene Kuntz Award recipient.

Oil and Gas Reception
5:45–7:30 p.m.
Thursday, November 21, 2024
Park House Event Center, Myriad Botanical Gardens

 

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Practicing law for 43 years, Sharon Taylor Thomas is one of the most experienced appellate attorneys in the state of Oklahoma. She uses her decades of expertise in private practice to advise clients on best practices and legal solutions; produce some of the most respected briefs and legal writing in Oklahoma; and offer opinions on the law based on a career’s worth of expertise.

Thomas enjoys an outstanding reputation in the legal community in Oklahoma. She began practicing law in 1981 at Watson & McKenzie in Oklahoma City, where she was an attorney and shareholder for 11 years. Following this, she spent over 24 years at Hall Estill in Oklahoma City, and for 22 of those years, she was a partner. She then joined The Rudnicki Firm upon its inception in 2017 as appellate counsel.

While Thomas has experience in a vast array of litigation, she has focused her career on appellate practice, oil and gas, and environmental law.

Thomas is licensed to practice in Oklahoma and before the U.S. District Courts for the Northern, Eastern, and Western Districts of Oklahoma, as well as the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit and the United States Supreme Court.

In addition to her professional accomplishments, Thomas has been married to Kyle Thomas for 38 years and has two adult children, a daughter-in-law, and a granddaughter. Thomas has lived in Oklahoma for 50 years and her early life was spent in California, Oregon, and Japan. She enjoys traveling around the world with her friends and family. She frequently visits her younger sister in Seattle, Washington, where she enjoys the ocean and cool air. Thomas is an avid reader.

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Program Agenda:

8:15-8:30 a.m. Opening Remarks—Anna E. Carpenter

8:30-9:20 a.m. Oil and Gas Litigation Update—Joseph A. Schremmer

9:20-10:10 a.m. Federal Regulatory Update—Dan Romito

10:20-11:10 a.m. Water Law and Lithium Mining—Burke W. Griggs

11:10-12:00 p.m. OCC Regulatory Issues—Ron Barnes and Grayson Barnes

12:00-1:10 p.m. Lunch Break

1:10-2:00 p.m. Landmen v. Lawyers—Timothy C. Dowd, Jordan D. Volino, and Heath Robinson

2:00-2:50 p.m. Ethics of Unauthorized Practice of Law—Jon J. Lee and Amanda Clark

2:50-3:05 p.m. Break

3:05-3:55 p.m. Surface and Subsurface Accommodation Issues—J. Matt Hill

4:00 p.m. Adjourn

 

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Dean Anna E. Carpenter

Anna E. Carpenter became the 14th dean of the University of Oklahoma College of Law and ninth director of the OU Law Center on July 15, 2024. She also holds the Fenelon Boesche Chair in Law.

Carpenter joined OU from the University of Utah, where she served as special advisor to the president. In this role, she was responsible for leading innovative university projects, such as launching a first-in-the-nation program that leverages pay-for-success financing to scale social interventions developed by university researchers. She also developed a new program to increase college affordability and community service by blending service requirements with substantial scholarships and wages for undergraduate students.  

At the University of Utah’s S.J. Quinney College of Law, Carpenter was a professor of law and, while concurrently serving as director of clinical programs, she founded and directed Justice Lab, a clinical course in which students work with community organizations to solve legal and policy problems and advocate for systemic change. For her leadership in legal services and legal education innovation, she received the inaugural Alli Gerkman Legal Visionary Award from the Institute for the Advancement of the American Legal System.

Carpenter’s scholarship includes empirical and theoretical work on state civil courts and judges; access to justice; and the relationship between law, civil courts, structural inequality, legal regulatory innovation and legal paraprofessionals. She has also written on legal education and clinical pedagogy, and her papers have been selected for the Junior Scholars Public Law Workshop and the New Voices in Civil Justice Workshop.

Her scholarship has been recognized with numerous national honors, including the Stephen Ellmann Memorial Clinical Scholarship Award, and she was named a Bellow Scholar by the Association of American Law Schools’ Committee on Lawyering in the Public Interest.

Prior to joining the University of Utah faculty in 2019, Carpenter’s academic appointments included associate clinical professor of law at the University of Tulsa College of Law and Clinical Teaching Fellow at Georgetown University Law Center. She was also a Georgetown Women’s Law and Public Policy Fellow.

Before her academic career, Carpenter worked as a legal services lawyer representing low-income people in civil and immigration matters and as a federal policy analyst focused on domestic violence and poverty. She has a juris doctor and master of laws degree from Georgetown University Law Center and a bachelor of arts degree from Willamette University.

 

Grayson Merrill Barnes

Grayson Merrill Barnes’ practice focuses on all aspects of oil and gas law with regard to the Oklahoma Corporation Commission. While in law school, with a Limited License to Practice, he began hearing cases before the Oklahoma Corporation Commission. He served as a panelist at the Oklahoma Corporation Commission’s 2015 and 2016 oil and gas institutes. He also served as a presenter for the Tulsa Association of Petroleum Landmen’s Spring Seminar in 2016, 2021 and 2022, and for Tulsa Association of Lease Title Analysts in 2021. Barnes graduated from the Oklahoma Bar Association’s Sixth Leadership Academy in 2018, was a member of Leadership Tulsa’s flagship program class 63 in 2020 and completed Harvard Law School Executive Education’s Leadership Program in 2024.

Barnes earned his juris doctor in 2013 from the University of Oklahoma College of Law, where he was on the Dean’s Honor Roll and received the American Jurisprudence Award for Professional Responsibility. While in law school, he focused on oil and gas law, attended the OU College of Law Summer Oxford Program, and worked in the OU Legal Clinic. Barnes graduated with a bachelor of business administration degree in entrepreneurship and venture management from OU in 2010. He was a state finalist in the Donald W. Reynolds Oklahoma Governor’s Cup Competition, a member of the JCPenney Leadership Program and the President’s Leadership Class.

Barnes is a native of Tulsa and has resided in Oklahoma all of his life. His professional affiliations include the Tulsa and the Oklahoma Bar associations, and he is a member of Tulsa Association of Professional Landmen, ADAM-Tulsa, Oklahoma City Association of Professional Landmen and Southern Oklahoma Association of Professional Landmen. In 2015, Barnes married Laura Ellis Barnes, an interior designer, and they have a daughter, Blue Barnes, 5, and a son, “Guy” Grayson Merrill Barnes II, 3.

 

Ronald Merrill Barnes

Ronald Merrill Barnes is a member of the law firm Barnes Law, PLLC, in Tulsa, focusing in the area of oil and gas. He has over 40 years of extensive legal experience counseling and representing small and large production companies in all aspects of oil and gas issues, with special emphasis in matters before the Oklahoma Corporation Commission. He serves as a mediator in all types of civil matters, being professionally trained in civil mediation by the National Judicial College. He also serves as an arbitrator in oil and gas disputes.

Barnes began his legal career serving as a trial examiner and then chief trial examiner with the Oklahoma Corporation Commission. He then was named a partner with McKinney & Stringer PC in Oklahoma City and founded their Tulsa office. In 2001, he and Clyde Crutchmer established the law firm of Crutchmer & Barnes, PLLC, in Tulsa. In 2015 the firm name was changed to Barnes Law, PLLC.

Barnes’ professional affiliations include the Tulsa and the Oklahoma bar associations (he is former OBA chair of the Mineral Law Section) and is a member of the Tulsa and Oklahoma City associations of petroleum landmen. He has attained Martindale-Hubbell's AV Preeminent® rating, which is the highest rating for legal ability and ethical standards. 

Barnes is a frequent speaker at numerous industry conferences, including the Tulsa Bar Association, Oklahoma Corporation Commission, Tulsa Association of Petroleum Landmen and Oklahoma City Association of Petroleum Landmen.

He holds a bachelor of business administration degree in petroleum land management from the University of Oklahoma and a juris doctor from the Oklahoma City University School of Law. 

Barnes is a native of Okmulgee and has resided in Oklahoma all his life. He has been married for 50 years to Deborah Browers Barnes, a judge with the Oklahoma Court of Civil Appeals.

 

Amanda Clark

Amanda Clark is an adjunct professor of law at the University of Oklahoma College of Law and for the Energy Management Program in the Michael F. Price College of Business at OU. Her scholarly interests are in the area of solar, wind, and oil and gas real property issues, estate planning, and probate. She has taught and guest lectured numerous classes in energy law and land at the College of Law and also at Chesapeake Energy Corporation, where she was a staff landman.

In addition to teaching, Clark has specialized in energy, oil and gas title and litigation for 13 years. She is a senior landman with Strata Clean Energy Co. and worked for 10 years as an exploration landman with Chesapeake Energy Corporation.

Clark has hands-on experience preparing wells for drilling, maintaining leasehold, and negotiating and drafting oil and gas leases and agreements for operators and mineral owners in various states, including Oklahoma, Texas, North Dakota, Ohio, and on federal and Native lands.  Clark also has experience running title and preparing division of interest as well as researching lost owners and legal issues dealing with oil and gas law, including title. More recently, Clark has entered the solar arena, working on solar leasing and contracting for Strata and previously for Demeter Solar. 

Clark received her bachelor of arts degree in legal studies from Kaplan University, where she attended online courses, and her juris doctor from the University of Oklahoma College of Law.  She is an active member of the American Association of Petroleum Landmen, the Oklahoma City Association of Petroleum Landmen and Mineral Lawyers Society, and she serves on the Kuntz Conference Planning Committee. In addition to being licensed to practice law, Clark is also a Certified Professional Landman.

 

Timothy C. Dowd

Timothy C. Dowd is an attorney with Elias, Books, Brown & Nelson, P.C., in Oklahoma City. Dowd served as president of the Oklahoma City Mineral Lawyers Society from 1996-97 and as chairperson of the Oklahoma Bar Association Mineral Law Section from 2005-06. Dowd is listed in the Best Lawyers in America - Oil & Gas Law.

Dowd is the author of the Oklahoma chapter of AAPL’s Nationwide Comparison of Laws on Leasing, Exploration and Production (2011) and the chapter on Oil and Gas Titles in West Publishing Co.’s Oklahoma Real Estate Forms and Practice.

Dowd is admitted to practice in the states of New Mexico, North Dakota, Oklahoma and West Virginia.

Dowd has written numerous articles for publication, including Statutory Pooling and the Unleased Mineral Owner, 65 Rocky Mt. Min L. Inst. 13-1 (2019); Trespass in the Age of Horizontal Drilling Under State Conservation Statutes, 63 Rocky Mt. Min. L. Inst. 6A-1 (2017); Current and Emerging Issues in Oil and Gas Title Examination, 2 Oil & Gas, Nat. Resources & Energy J. 505 (2017); Oil and Gas Title Law – A Review of 50 Common Problems – North Dakota, 90 N.D. L.REV 289 (2014); Clearing Title of Long-Lost Mineral Owners, 54 Rocky Mountain Mineral Law Institute 30-1 (2008); and Costs That Can Be Charged in Calculation of Risk Penalties Under Forced Pooling Actions and Non-Consent Penalties Under Operating Agreements, 25 Energy & Min. L. Inst. Ch 10. (2005).

Dowd’s primary area of practice is oil and gas law, including the rendering of title opinions, and the drafting and negotiations of industry contracts.

 

Burke W. Griggs

Burke W. Griggs joined the Washburn University law faculty in 2016 as a visiting associate professor. He teaches property law to first-year students and natural resources law to upper-division students.

Prior to joining the faculty, Griggs practiced water law in both the public and private sectors. As an assistant attorney general, he represented the State of Kansas in federal and interstate water matters, most prominently Kansas v. Nebraska, an original action to enforce the Republican River Compact against the State of Nebraska. For the first time in its history, the Supreme Court awarded disgorgement of the violating state’s ill-gotten gains (Kansas v. Nebraska, 135 S.Ct. 1042 (2015)).

Griggs also served as lead counsel for Kansas in the negotiations over the Kickapoo Tribe reserved water rights settlement, the first of its kind in Kansas. Outside of the litigation arena, Griggs has advised Kansas’ natural resources agencies on matters of natural resources law and policy. He worked in private practice at Stevens & Brand, LLP, in Lawrence, Kansas.

In May 2023, Griggs received a Fulbright U.S. Scholar Program award in Law and Sustainability from the U.S. Department of State and the Fulbright Foreign Scholarship Board to the NOVA School of Law in Lisbon, Portugal, for the 2023-2024 academic year. His Fulbright project, “Conjunctive Management of Trans-boundary Waters in the Iberian Peninsula and the Southwest USA,” researched, developed and articulated legal tools necessary to integrate the management of surface and groundwater supplies across river basins that cross state and national boundaries—tools urgently needed to improve water sustainability and climate resilience.

In 1990, Griggs earned his bachelor of arts degree in history from Stanford University. He later attained his doctor of philosophy in history from Yale University in 1998, and in 2006, Griggs obtained his juris doctor from the University of Kansas School of Law.

 

J. Matt Hill

J. Matt Hill is a litigation attorney at Mahaffey & Gore, P.C., in Oklahoma City. The law firm’s practice focuses on all areas of oil and gas law. Hill has extensive experience in contractual disputes and drafting contractual arrangements between various types of interests related to oil and gas development.

In his practice, Hill represents operators, working interest owners, royalty owners and landowners in a wide array of oil and gas issues.

He is a native Oklahoman, growing up in Perkins. He graduated summa cum laude from Oklahoma City University School of Law.

 

Jon J. Lee

Jon J. Lee is an associate professor of law at the University of Oklahoma College of Law and a recognized scholar in legal ethics and intellectual property law. Within the field of legal ethics, Lee examines the extent to which lawyer codes and disciplinary procedures promote ethical practice and protect the public. His work in intellectual property law explores the outer limits of trademark protection and the lawyer’s role in trademark prosecution.

Lee recently received the Frederick C. Zacharias Memorial Prize for Scholarship in Professional Responsibility, which is awarded annually to an outstanding article in the field.

Lee graduated first in his class from the University of North Carolina School of Law, where he was a member of the North Carolina Law Review and inducted into the Order of the Coif. He then clerked for the Honorable Roger L. Gregory of the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit and was an officer in the North Carolina Army National Guard.

Prior to his arrival at the OU College of Law, Lee was on the faculties of the University of Minnesota and University of Maine law schools. He began his teaching career at the UNC School of Law, where he also served as the associate dean for administration and assistant dean for academic excellence.

 

Heath Robinson

Heath Robinson has been practicing for almost 20 years with over a decade of Appalachia-focused experience. He is the director of title and A&D for Ascent Resources, LLC, for which he has been employed since 2014. In his current position, Robinson manages Ascent’s title team, which is responsible for the title review of Ascent wells from inception to payout and monitoring and analyzing current oil and gas case law. Robinson is also responsible for the management of the A&D team at Ascent, overseeing both acquisition and divestiture opportunities. 

During his time at Ascent, Robinson has successfully finalized more than a dozen transactions involving over 300 wells and approximately 300,000 net acres (minerals and leasehold) exceeding $4 billion. In addition, he manages the Corporate Records department at Ascent. His combined team consists of diversely experienced individuals whose duties expand into multiple facets of Ascent’s daily business. 

Prior to joining Ascent, Robinson was employed in various capacities at Chesapeake Energy Corporation with his primary focus being Ohio, Pennsylvania and West Virginia assets.

Robinson is a graduate of Oklahoma State University and received his law degree from the University of Oklahoma College of Law. He is licensed to practice law in Ohio, Oklahoma and Pennsylvania.  

Robinson is an active member of Ohio Oil and Gas Association’s Regulatory Committee and served as the Land Committee chairman from 2020-23. He is also a member of the Energy Mineral Law Foundation, American Association of Petroleum Landmen and the Oklahoma City Association of Professional Landmen.

He resides in Okarche, Oklahoma, with his wife, Rachel. In his spare time, he enjoys playing music and traveling.

 

Dan Romito

Dan Romito is a managing director overseeing the Consulting & Advocacy practice at Pickering Energy Partners. Romito’s career has centered on helping capital-intensive businesses efficiently navigate the ever-evolving capital markets and global regulatory landscape. He advises private companies, public issuers and asset managers in the energy, industrials, materials, utilities and health care sectors to optimize the delicate balance between sustainability strategies and capital discipline, pursuing quality pools of capital, employing pragmatic sustainability-related directives, and executing efficient stakeholder management strategies.

Romito's career is marked by his ability to build, commercialize and manage revenue-generating business units. Before launching the Consultancy & Advocacy practice at Pickering, he honed his skills at Nasdaq, where he specialized in building investor analytics platforms, technology solutions and business development. His most notable achievement during his tenure at Nasdaq was the development and commercialization of Nasdaq’s Strategic Capital Intelligence offerings, a suite of services that included a proprietary investor behavioral analytics platform, the ESG Advisory Service, the Insight360 Analytics modules, the Activist Diagnostic, the Capital Deployment Scenario Analysis, the Biotech Investor Targeting platform, and the Small Cap Investor Targeting Service.

His extensive publication record further underscores Romito’s influence in finance and sustainability. With over 45 published writings on topics such as energy policy, sustainability, investor behavior, passive ownership and shareholder activism, his work has been featured in several global periodicals, including Harvard Business Review, the Harvard Law School Forum on Corporate Governance, CNBC, Bloomberg, Hart Energy and Global Investor Magazine. He has given more than 200 presentations to policymakers, corporate boards, regulators and investors. His presentations cover topics such as the state of the capital markets, global energy policy, fossil fuel advocacy and sustainability strategies. Romito received a bachelor of arts degree from the University of Chicago and a master of business administration in finance from DePaul University. He sits on the Independent Petroleum Association of America’s Capital Markets Committee, serves as an advisory board member for Marquette University's Sustainability Lab, and is an adjunct professor at Marquette University, teaching Sustainable Finance.

 

Joseph A. Schremmer

Joseph A. Schremmer is an associate professor of law at the University of Oklahoma College of Law and directs the Oil, Gas, Natural Resources, and Energy Center (ONE C). He teaches courses in oil and gas, energy and natural resources law, as well as first-year property.

Schremmer is the update author of Kuntz on Oil and Gas Law, a co-author of Oil and Gas Law: Cases and Materials (11th ed. Foundation Press) and has published extensively in the law journals on topics such as correlative rights, waste, property in pore space, subsurface trespass, and split estates.

Before joining OU Law, Schremmer was the Judge Leon Karelitz Oil & Gas Law Professor at the University of New Mexico School of Law. Before that, he practiced law in Wichita, Kansas, for six years and was a partner with Depew Gillen Rathbun & McInteer, LC. His practice covered most aspects of upstream oil and gas production, including title examination, transactional work, practice before the Kansas Corporation Commission, and civil litigation. He was the president of the Oil, Gas, and Minerals Section of the Kansas Bar Association and was recognized multiple times as a Rising Star by Super Lawyers. Schremmer earned his juris doctor from the University of Kansas School of Law in 2013.

 

Jordan Volino

Jordan Volino is the general counsel for 89 Energy and Land Run Minerals, a private equity- backed oil and gas company and mineral investment group based out of Oklahoma City. Volino’s current role includes handling all legal, litigation, transactional or corporate matters for 89 Energy and Land Run, or its affiliate companies.

Volino frequently lectures on various energy, property and land topics, and is a published scholar on oil and gas legal matters in multiple states. In addition, Volino is an author for the Oklahoma state forms manual covering oil, gas and real estate forms.

He serves as a board member for the Oklahoma City Association of Professional Landmen and for the Legal Committee for the Petroleum Alliance and is a member of the Mineral Lawyer’s Society. In 2023, Hart Energy and Oil and Gas Investor Magazine deemed Volino a member of the “Who’s Who in A&D and Capital Formation” in the oil and gas industry. He is licensed to practice law in the state of Oklahoma. Volino earned his juris doctor from the University of Oklahoma College of Law in 2016.

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Pending CLE approval for six general credits and one ethics credit.

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Hotel

Kuntz is happening on OU-Alabama weekend. Please book your rooms early. 

Hotels close to the Oklahoma City Convention Center include:

Colcord Hotel
15 North Robinson Avenue
Oklahoma City, OK 73102

Fairfield Inn and Suites Oklahoma City Downtown
10 Southwest 4th Street
Oklahoma City, OK 73109

Omni Oklahoma City Hotel
100 Oklahoma City Boulevard
Oklahoma City, OK 73109

Renaissance Oklahoma City Downtown Bricktown Hotel
100 East Sheridan Avenue
Oklahoma City, OK 73104

Parking

Coming soon.

 

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