Most first posts introduce the author and explain what the purpose of the blog is.  It seems like a good tradition, so I won’t break with it.

I’m Kyle Nuttall.  I grew up in rural Oregon, in the foothills of what’s called the Coastal Range.  I’ve lived in a number of different states, and Italy.  I went to college at George Wythe University in southwest Utah, and got my law degree at the University of Oklahoma.

I took my first oil and gas class during my second year of law school.  A couple things about that class fascinated me.  I’m one of those odd people that actually likes reading contracts, and oil and gas law deals with a lot of contracts.   Plus, it turned out that oil and gas law touched on a surprisingly large number of other legal disciplines; torts, property, Constitutional law, wills and trusts, corporations, federal regulations, taxes, state regulations, land use, municipal laws, even Native American law.  It appealed to my jack-of-all-trades personality.  I took every class the school offered on oil and gas.

While I was taking that first class I asked the professor what I should do to get into the oil and gas field.  He suggested I spend a few years working as a landman.  I also spoke with an attorney who was practicing in the field, and he suggested the same thing.  So while my law school buddies were looking for clerkships and summer intern positions, I tracked down a job working as a landman.  I worked for several years as a landman, and I enjoyed it.  More importantly, I learned about the oil and gas patch from the inside.

Now I’m a full-time oil and gas attorney.  Most of the people that come to me need advice about property (surface rights) and contracts (leases, ratifications, modifications, etc.).  It would be helpful for people to know something about it all before they talk to me.  So I’m going to do my best to put some basic property and contract law into plain English that the Average Joe will be able to understand.  There will be plenty of posts on other subjects as well.  But this is what will be the meat and potatoes of the blog.

Enjoy.

Kyle Nuttall