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The Rule of Law: The foundation for justice and stability for the energy industry
Original Program Date :
Length: 60 Minutes
How does the Rule of Law provide a just and stable framework for energy operations world-wide?
This distinguished panel will show how the Rule of Law protects social and contractual freedom in transactions with States and with private parties, while safeguarding the sanctity of contracts and the stability of property rights. In the energy industry, it forms the foundation for preserving project value and promoting energy security. Panel members will draw on their research and observations over many decades in reflecting on the Rule of Law as developed under different legal traditions and applied in various countries. Their combined knowledge will provide deep insight and understanding of the Rule of Law and its critical role in nearly every facet of the energy business.
Lawrence P. Simon, Jr., Liskow & Lewis
Lawrence P. Simon, Jr. (“Larry”) is a Senior Counsel in the Lafayette office of Liskow & Lewis. Larry handles oil and gas, property and commercial litigation, with an emphasis on royalty and mineral lease issues, energy marketing contract disputes, and disputes involving the processing of natural gas and the contracts affecting such operations. He also has extensive experience in litigating issues involving regulatory rulings and orders of the Department of Conservation. Larry has been a frequent speaker on oil and gas issues and litigation topics. Larry served as the Chair of the Institute for Energy Law and received the Institute’s Lifetime Achievement Award for energy litigation. He continues to serve on the Institute’s Executive Committee.
S. Jack Balagia, Jr., The Law Office of Jack Balagia, Jr. PLLC
Jack Balagia is a lawyer, arbitrator, mediator, and adjunct professor at the University of Texas law school. He previously served as Vice President and General Counsel of Exxon Mobil Corporation. Before joining Exxon in 1998, Mr. Balagia worked in private law practice in Austin and Houston for more than twenty years with a practice focused on energy litigation and regulation, and First Amendment law.
During his tenure as General Counsel, he served as co-chair of the Civil Justice Reform Group, a member of the Board of Overseers for the RAND Institute for Civil Justice, the Board of Directors of the National Center for State Courts, and the Board of Directors of the Institute for Legal Reform of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. He continues to serve on the Board of the Center for American and International Law.
John P. Bowman, Georgetown Law
John P. Bowman serves as an expert on international petroleum contracts and as an arbitrator in international energy disputes. For 40 years he represented international energy companies in commercial and investment disputes, until his retirement from King & Spalding in 2020. He frequently writes and speaks on international arbitration and international energy topics.
In November 2017 John received the Institute for Energy Law's Lifetime Achievement in Energy Litigation Award, given to one energy litigator each year whose achievements "have won the admiration of his or her peers".
Fall 2022 marks his seventh year as an Adjunct Professor at the Georgetown University Law Center, where he teaches International Energy Arbitration. John taught International Commercial Arbitration at the University of Oklahoma College of Law from 2012-2016. He is also an honorary lecturer at the Centre for Energy, Petroleum and Mineral Law and Policy at the University of Dundee.
Professor Nadia Nedzel, Southern University Law Center
Nadia E. Nedzel, J.D., LL.M., professor of law emerita at SULC, has had a widely varied career. Fate led her to law school, and after graduating from Loyola Law (New Orleans), her career in law started with the honor of clerking for Judge Carl E. Stewart on the U.S. Fifth Circuit. She then returned to Northwestern for an LL.M. in international business law, after which she ran Tulane’s LL.M. and exchange programs for several years, practiced international trade, corporate compliance, and admiralty insurance defense for a bit in New Orleans, and then joined the faculty at SULC, where she taught Contracts, Obligations, Sale and Lease, and International law until 2021.
Although she has published on a number of topics, for the past decade, her research has been devoted to the comparative study of the rule of law and its connection with economic development. She has also written two books and a number of articles on the Rule of Law.
Judge Edward C. Prado Edward C. Prado C. Prado Prado, Former Ambassador to Argentina, Bracewell LLP
Judge Edward Prado is a former ambassador to Argentina and a distinguished federal jurist. He served for nearly 35 years as a United States judge, including as an appellate judge on the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit and 19 years as a district judge for the Western District of Texas. During his time on the bench, Judge Prado was appointed by the Chief Justice of the United States Supreme Court to chair the Criminal Justice Review Committee, the board of the Federal Judicial Center and the Defender Services Committee and Judicial Branch Committee of the Judicial Conference of the United States.
Prior to becoming a judge, he served as the United States Attorney for the Western District of Texas. During his term as United States Attorney, he was appointed to serve on the Attorney General’s Advisory Committee. He also served as a state district judge, an assistant federal public defender, and an assistant state district attorney in Texas.
