SAN FRANCISCO
www.dailyjournal.com
FRIDAY, MARCH 25, 2016
High Energy
LAW FIRM BUSINESS
Sacramento-based Day Carter Murphy, started by attorneys who left Downey Brand, is known for its expertise
on legal issues in the oil and gas industry.
Joshua Sebold
Daily Journal Staff Writer
S
AC R A M E N T O — T h e
energy industry has always
been defined by big risks
and even bigger personalities, but
when there’s a deal to be done in
California, clients often turn to a
relatively small energy boutique,
Day Carter Murphy LLP, for their
legal advice.
The firm was formed by five
attorneys from the largest firm in
Sacramento, Downey Brand LLP,
including the firm’s former managing partner, James M. Day Jr.
That group was primarily focused on oil and gas, but the firm
has since grown to 10 attorneys
and broadened its horizons to
encompass renewable energy and
representation of utilities and government agencies.
The firm started with one litigation partner and now has three,
providing general litigation counsel
to its clients in addition to its energy
specialties. The attorneys will celebrate their tenth year as a boutique
in September.
Julie A. Carter, a former member
of Downey’s executive committee
and the informal managing partner
of the boutique, said the energy
industry’s constant shifts related to
the economy and new technologies
keeps things fresh.
She said wind and solar energy
installations are very similar to oil
wells from a legal perspective, and
oil companies are also expanding
into those industries as they adjust
to changes in oil and gas regulations
as well as the economy.
Attorneys “Jane [E. Luckhardt]
and Ann [L. Trowbridge] do a lot of
Managing partner Julie A. Carter
permitting, CEQA [the California
Environmental Quality Act], other
kinds of energy projects,” she said.
“We get involved in geothermal
projects, solar projects, wind projects, biomass.”
The firm has represented major
oil companies like Exxon Mobil
Corp. and Occidental Petroleum
Corp., but the state’s strong pool of
litigious activists and lack of massive oil reservoirs has encouraged
them to look elsewhere for the large
projects that allow them to create
economies of scale.
But smaller independent oil companies are still active in the state.
“The optimism of an oilman
never ceases to amaze me,” Carter
said. “You could drill three wells a
year, now it takes maybe three years
to drill one well.”
She added that the plunge in
oil prices has led to a momentary
shift towards a more dispute and
litigation oriented practice in the
industry.
The firm’s attorneys set legal
precedent in the state while they
Joshua Sebold / Daily Journal
were still at Downey Brand, convincing the 1st District Court of
Appeal that a company could drill
in the right of way of a county road,
with permission from the local
government.
They beat a legal challenge from
an adjacent property owner, earning
a published opinion in the process.
Bello v. ABA Energy Corp. 121 Cal.
App.4th 301 (Cal. App. 1st Dist.
Aug. 2, 2004).
Mathew M. Brady, vice president
and general counsel at ABA Energy
Corp., the firm’s client in that case,
said many large firms designate
someone as an oil and gas expert,
but they rarely have the level of
expertise that the boutique exhibits.
“If you really want an oil and
gas lawyer, you’ve got to go to Day
Carter Murphy.”
Other attorneys in the field echo
that sentiment.
Jack Quirk, an oil and gas lawyer at Bright and Brown, who has
worked with Day Carter attorneys
and also negotiated on opposite
sides of the table, said he hopes his
peers look at him the way they look
at Day Carter.
“There’s a handful of law firms in
the state who are truly oil and gas
counsel,” he said. “They are at or
near the top of that on everybody’s
list.”
Sean B. Murphy, another name
partner at the boutique, said the
firm prides itself on its affordable rates and responsiveness in a
world where pressure is constantly
increasing on the industries they
serve.
Clients “want stuff fast,” he said.
“They want to close a transaction,
whether they want reserves on their
books, whether they want to show
they’ve closed deals, whether they
think that this is something they
can do a lot with and they want to
start getting a rate of return on it.”
The firm charges $350-$450 per
hour for partner time and $325 per
associate, although the firm has
a non-leveraged model in which
almost everyone is considered a
partner.
Times continue to change and the
hot issues of the moment are never
stable. Fracking may dominate
headlines in one moment, with gas
storage explosions replacing it the
next. But there’s always work to
be done, Carter said, and the legal
issues shift as the clients adjust to
new realities.
“The last time it was pretty bad,
a lot of people got laid off in the
industry and they started working
for cell phone companies because
this is when they started to put up
the towers.” Carter said. “They
knew all the land issues in terms
of getting easements, what kind
of document you need, how to
report it.”
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