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Investing in Energy, Efficiently
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Investing in Energy, Efficiently
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JOSH DAZEY U.S. ENERGY DEVELOPMENT CORPORATION
Josh Dazey, general counsel and corporate secretary for U.S. Energy Development Corporation, discusses his role as solo general counsel at an award-winning upstream oil and gas firm, as well as why he finds working in the energy sector so fascinating.
CCBJ: Upstream oil and gas firm U.S. Energy Development Corporation recently brought you in as general counsel. Please tell us a bit about what that entails.
Josh Dazey: I am the solo general counsel here, so my responsibilities are wide-ranging in a legal sense. I manage all legal issues, ranging from general corporate legal matters to litigation. This covers everything from managing litigation, assisting our business development team in negotiating transactions, negotiating commercial and financial contracts, reviewing policies and procedures, advising on compliance and regulatory matters, all the way down to negotiating nondisclosure agreements and advising on human resources matters. As a solo general counsel, I am responsible for matters ranging from the very top, strategic level, all the way down to putting paper in the copy machine when necessary. One of the primary skills of a solo general counsel is to understand when you can handle matters on your own, and when it is best to consult outside legal experts. I think being able to strike the right balance in that respect comes from experience, and just living through enough similar matters to understand when it’s advisable to bring in a subject matter expert.
In addition, given my prior experience in oil and gas and particularly upstream companies and executive management, I bring a certain amount of strategic
experience to the table. Part of any good counsel’s job is to point out to your clients when you’ve seen particular situations before, and to take advantage of the different ways that you’ve seen folks address the issues that arise in the operations of an oil and gas company.
How will you utilize your past experience, whether that’s education or previous job experience in your new position with U.S. Energy?
My experience has been very broad. I went to law school at Georgetown and knew that I wanted to be a corporate lawyer. I began my career in the corporate law department at Baker Botts in Houston – a historic Texas-based law firm. While there, I primarily worked on securities matters and mergers and acquisitions. After I’d been there for several years, I moved to a satellite office in Palo Alto that had much more venture capital work, where I got involved with some alternative energy clients as well. I moved from there to a private equity–backed hybrid, upstream and midstream master limited partnership, where I was their Associate General Counsel of Securities and Finance and Assistant Secretary. And from there I became the general counsel at a Permian-based upstream oil and gas company headquartered in Fort Worth. So, I have a very extensive energy-based background, and I’ve worked on everything from public company securities and M&A, all the way down to being a solo general counsel advising on human resources issues or commercial issues, oil and gas purchase contracts, credit agreements, and so on.
My background has provided me with familiarity regarding a variety of unique issues that might arise in this industry, and helps me to solve for matters that may not be apparent on the front end. Where I have seen complexities arise with other clients or at other jobs, I am able to say, “Hey, as we’re solving this issue that’s in front of us right now, let’s look at the future too. I’ve seen this come up, let’s make sure we address certain matters on the front end.” Having that deep background in energy, and in Texas as well, allows me to provide more value to my clients here.
What makes you passionate about the energy industry in particular?
One of my favorite things about being a lawyer is being able to learn about the industries of my clients. It’s hard to be a successful lawyer without understanding your client’s industry and being prepared to address the unique issues that may arise. When I was working in private practice, that was always one of my favorite homework assignments. Sometimes you may have a client with exposure to an industry that you may not have great experience with, and getting up to speed and learning a new business is one of the most appealing parts of the job.
That goes double for the energy industry. I first started working with energy clients at the beginning of my legal career, and obviously it’s been pretty energy focused since then. One of the things that I’ve enjoyed most has been learning the actual business. That goes beyond just the financial statements, and by the way, any corporate lawyer is going to need to learn more about accounting and financial statements than they ever teach you in law school. It’s a fundamental part of understanding how that side of the business works, but with energy, you add something else too. There’s an entire engineering aspect, as well as an entire geology aspect, in the upstream industry in particular. Those are vast fields that people spend their entire careers working in and continually learning about.
As a lawyer, you will never be on their knowledge level, but you must be able to speak with them and understand what they’re telling you. Learning the geology, engineering and accounting to get to that point – it’s all a lot of fun. There’s a limitless pool of things that you can spend time researching. And frankly, it’s fascinating. As a kid, my dad would take me out rock hunting. I didn’t expect that later in my career, I’d be reading college textbooks on geology and rock formations, and that this subject matter would encompass so much of my career. It’s so important to the energy industry. And that’s one of the parts of energy industry – and one of the parts of the legal practice overall – that I love the most. You never stop learning the law, as well as everything else that your client needs you to know to be an effective advisor.
Josh Dazey is general counsel with U.S. Energy Development Corp. He is responsible for leading and managing strategic transactions and advising the firm on legal matters. Previously, he was executive vice president-legal and corporate secretary of Approach Resources Inc. Reach him at jdazey@usedc.com.
What are your goals for the future with U.S. Energy?
As a lawyer, I view my role as supporting clients. I’m not joining as general counsel to say, “These are the strategic goals for the company.” My job is to support my clients and help them to achieve their strategic goals. Therefore, my personal goals, in order to achieve that, include building trust, building communication, and being a trusted advisor at all levels of the company.
I have an open door policy, meaning, I want every employee to feel comfortable coming to me with questions about anything that might be related to legal. Anything that they may feel I’m in a good position to answer, I want them to be comfortable knocking on my door and asking me that. As a lawyer, we all know that issues addressed ahead of time are much simpler than ones that are brought to you afterwards. So part of the soft skills relevant to being an in-house attorney are making sure people are not reluctant to talk with you. Having been here three months now, continuing to develop that trust and communication is an important short-term goal.
Beyond that, as a solo general counsel, one of the goals that you’re always working on is smoothly and efficiently integrating with all the other departments in the company and making sure that they understand the value that you can provide. You want future interactions to be smooth, efficient, and for everybody to benefit from the legal counsel that’s sitting in the building with them.
Company wise, the goals for the future of U.S. Energy, on a larger scale, are probably what most upstream energy companies want – to gain efficiencies, operate efficiently, to mitigate risk, increase profitability, sustain a focus
on compliance, and to operate safely. If you ask most upstream companies what their long-term strategic goals are, like us, they will typically be related to increasing your footprint, increasing reserves and production, developing efficiency innovations, and maintaining a focus on safety and environmental compliance.
Are there any projects and initiatives you would like to mention that may be of interest to our readers?
We’re committed to environmental stewardship, social responsibility and corporate governance (ESG). We have ESG initiatives aimed at being responsible corporate citizens, being a responsible upstream energy company, and achieving overall ESG compliance. There is a constant push to have a positive corporate culture. Collaboration is important. Everybody here is a hard worker, and everybody gets along well. Our employees are proud to be here and are committed to making the company a good place to work. You can see it when walking around our headquarters and it’s in large part why I chose this job, as opposed to doing something else in the industry. And that’s something that companies should work on constantly. You can’t say, “Hey, employees seem valued. Let’s move on.” It’s something that the people in charge in every department need to focus on. And I think we do a really good job of that.
