Shale gas lawyers in big demand in Ohio

Firms that already had oil and gas practices are now expanding them. Industry veterans from Texas and Oklahoma are partnering with Ohio lawyers to grab business. Small firms and solo practitioners like Piergallini are representing landowners, while big firms are courting the gas companies. And in Cleveland, law schools are scheduling courses that deal with shale exploration.

Leasing and title quandaries are just the opening volley in what will be years of legal work -- and probably thousands of lawsuits -- tied to exploration, drilling, production and pipeline construction.

"I wouldn't be surprised if there wasn't tens of thousands of disputes already," said Roger Proper Jr. at Critchfield, Critchfield & Johnston in Wooster, adding that many may not have reached the courtroom.

For Piergallini, shale work now consumes 100 percent of his law practice in Tiltonsville, a short drive south of Steubenville along the Ohio River.

In two 12-hour shifts last August, Piergallini, 56, helped 550 families in Harrison and Jefferson counties execute leases with oil and gas companies covering 32,000 acres.

"My practice was real estate and probate, and coal was a big part of that," said the grandson of Italian immigrants who moved to southeast Ohio in the 1920s to work in bituminous coal mining. "It only made sense that it would transition into oil and gas."

The rush by energy companies to get at eastern Ohio's resources has Lee Plakas working long weeks, too.

The managing partner of Tzangas, Plakas, Mannos & Raies in Canton helps property owners form associations that combine their land into bigger chunks that are more attractive to developers.

"In numbers there is strength, and because of the dramatically different technology of the horizontal drilling, all of the procedures and customs have been thrown out the window," Plakas said.

Harvesting oil and gas from shale uses techniques for drilling horizontal wells and then fracturing, or "fracking," the rock. Wells go down about 8,000 feet before they branch into horizontal sections that can extend a mile or more from the vertical shaft. A mixture of water, sand and chemicals is pumped under pressure into the horizontal borings.

Plakas said it's a world different from the time when farmers would lease land for $10 or $15 an acre, with operators setting up see-saw natural gas "grasshoppers" that almost blended into the landscape like rusty farm equipment. Today's horizontal drilling rigs tower up to 90 feet, surrounded by rock and gravel well pads stretching 5 to 15 acres.

http://www.cleveland.com/business/index.ssf/2012/03/shale_play_lawyers_in_big_dema.html