Jesse R. Pierce

Jesse Pierce has more than fifty years of litigation experience and has tried many types of cases in state and federal courts of Texas and other states. He is licensed to practice in Texas, Oklahoma, Arkansas, Pennsylvania, and Ohio. He specializes in trials of complex energy and commercial cases. Mr. Pierce is Board Certified in Civil Trial Law by the Texas Board of Legal Specialization. Mr. Pierce is a member of Litigation Counsel of America, a trial-lawyer honorary society composed of less than one-half of one percent of American lawyers. Fellows are selected based on effectiveness and accomplishment in litigation, both at the trial and appellate levels and on the basis of a superior ethical reputation.

Mr. Pierce represents both plaintiffs and defendants, and has represented clients in many types of complex litigation, including oil and gas, environmental, product liability, interpretation and enforcement of contracts, temporary restraining orders, trade secrets, franchising, real estate, ERISA claims, securities and corporate matters, franchising disputes, copyright and entertainment matters, and a variety of fraud, usury, and Deceptive Trade Practices matters, and has extensive experience in class action litigation. Mr. Pierce frequently lectures at continuing legal education seminars and was a drafter of the Texas Pattern Jury Charges for Oil and Gas Cases.

Mr. Pierce has handled a number of appeals to the Texas Supreme Court. During his first year of practice, he had a successful appeal of a contested probate matter in Hall v. White, 525 S.W.2d 860 (Tex. 1975). He also successfully argued a complex engineering malpractice case involving the design of electronic microprocessor devices in 1993, Texas Instruments, Inc. v. Teletron Energy Mgmt. Inc., 877 S.W.2d 276 (Tex. 1994). He successfully appealed a multi-party lease termination and adverse possession case, Natural Gas Pipeline Company of America, et al. v. Pool, 124 S.W.3d 188 (Tex. 2003).

In the late 1970s, Mr. Pierce began to handle complex oil and gas, land, and commercial cases. He handled a number of cases for major oil and gas companies involving disputes with royalty owners, disputes between operators and working interest owners, disputes relating to purchase and sale agreements, and disputes between gas producers and pipeline companies for clients such as The Superior Oil Company, Texaco, Shell Oil Company, Pennzoil-Quaker State, Mobil Oil Company, Chesapeake Energy Corporation, SM Energy Company, Cabot Oil & Gas Corporation, and CCI Gulf Coast Upstream LLC.

During the 1980s, Mr. Pierce also represented a number of both debtors and lenders in corporate reorganization cases, In re Charter Oil Co., 63 B.R. 662 (Bankr. M.D. Fla. 1986). Mr. Pierce has extensive experience in the trial of environmental cases. In 1991, he represented Monsanto Corporation in the trial and successful appeal of a Superfund case involving over two hundred homeowners, Barras v. Monsanto Co., 831 S.W.2d 859 (Tex. App.—Houston [14th Dist.] 1992).

In the late 1990s, Mr. Pierce represented Mitchell Energy Corporation in the trial and successful appeal of several water pollution cases involving hundreds of millions of dollars in claims, Mitchell Energy Corp. v. Bartlett, 958 S.W.2d 430 (Tex. App.— Fort Worth 1997).

Since 2000, Mr. Pierce’s practice has been focused primarily on complex energy and business litigation and appeals.