Glenn E. Johnson, winner of the Ernest E. Smith Lifetime Achievement Award for accomplishments in the field of energy law.
On February 9, 2012, the Texas Journal of Oil, Gas, and Energy Law awarded the 2012 Ernest E. Smith Lifetime Achievement Award to Glenn E. Johnson, partner at Kelly Hart & Hallman LLP. This prestigious award is given to a distinguished attorney who has made significant contributions to the oil, gas, and energy industry.
Johnson received his BA, cum laude, from Texas Christian University, and his JD from the University of Texas School of Law. A former hearings examiner for the Railroad Commission of Texas, Johnson is a partner in Kelly Hart & Hallman’s Environmental and Administrative Law and Oil & Gas/Energy practice groups. His practice focuses on oil and gas development and pipeline regulatory work before Texas state agencies for oil, gas, and pipeline operators, and associated litigation and appellate work before all Texas courts.
Johnson has been recognized in Chambers as a leader in energy regulation and litigation in Texas, and has been included in Best Lawyers in America since 1995. He has also been identified as a “Super Lawyer” in Administrative Law by Texas Monthly yearly since 2004.
The Ernest E. Smith Lifetime Achievement Award honors practitioners who have participated in the advancement of natural resources law, policy, or scholarship. The award is named after Professor Ernest E. Smith, the Rex G. Baker Centennial Chair in Natural Resources Law at the Law School. Considered the preeminent specialist in oil, gas, and energy law, Smith cowrote leading casebook Oil and Gas Law and leading treatise Texas Law of Oil and Gas. He created the first-ever wind-power law class to be taught at an American law school. He also teaches property law. Smith recently received the Massey Teaching Excellence Award, which is given to a law professor who “epitomizes the School’s priority of providing the highest quality of teaching to its students.” Smith also serves as a faculty advisor to the Texas Journal of Oil, Gas, and Energy Law.
The seventh recipient of the Ernest E. Smith Lifetime Achievement Award, Johnson joins Vinson & Elkins partner Fielding “Tres” Cochran III; Andrews Kurth partner Timothy Unger; Cotton Bledsoe Tighe & Dawson founding partner Robert Bledsoe; former Devon Energy General counsel Duke Ligon; Exxon general counsel C. Kenneth Roberts; and the late Frank Douglass, founding partner of Scott, Douglass & McConnico, in receiving this honor at the Journal’s annual banquet.
The Texas Journal of Oil, Gas, and Energy Law is the only entirely student-run energy publication in the country, and one of the largest publications at the Law School. In addition to publishing articles on oil, gas, and energy topics twice a year, the Journal hosts a two-day continuing legal education symposium in conjunction with its banquet. This year’s symposium took place on February 9–10, 2012, at the Etter-Harbin Alumni Center. The Symposium featured topics including solar energy, Dodd-Frank, international energy transactions, MLPs, and hydraulic fracturing. Speakers included external and in-house practitioners, and law and business professors.
Contacts:
Texas Journal of Oil, Gas, and Energy Law, info@tjogel.org
Kirston Fortune, Law School Communications, 512-471-7330 or kfortune@law.utexas.edu