Oil and Gas Capital Markets Counsel: Houston Ahead of New York

A general counsel choosing oil and gas capital markets lawyers in Houston is looking in the one city where lawyers worked on more of this sector's deals than New York lawyers did. Sartori & Partners data show that 48.2% of oil and gas deals in the 12 months to October 2026 were handled with lawyers in Houston, against 42.0% with lawyers in New York. Power and renewables runs the other way, with New York lawyers on 32.9% of its deals and Houston lawyers on 12.2%. The practice mix is just as distinct. Capital markets lawyers sat on 41.5% of oil and gas deals, against 26.4% of all dated deals. For an oil and gas issuer, the search for offering counsel starts in Texas, and the real question is which office holds the partner who will run the deal.

In 12 months, 48.2% of oil and gas deals were handled with lawyers in Houston, against 42.0% with lawyers in New York, a gap of 6.2 points. Other Texas cities also appear on the list. Dallas lawyers worked on 22.2% of the sector's deals and Austin lawyers on 13.4%, while Washington stood at 24.1% and London at 19.3%. Power and renewables shows how unusual this is. Houston lawyers worked on 12.2% of power deals, so the oil and gas share is 4.0 times as high, and Dallas lawyers worked on 5.3% of power deals. A deal staffed from several offices counts once in each city, so these shares overlap and are never added up; the base is the sector's deals with a known lawyer location. For an oil and gas company, a team built only in New York leaves out the city where the sector's deal work is done most often. Ask each firm where its lead partner and its working team sit before the pitch, not after.

Capital markets lawyers worked on 41.5% of oil and gas deals, against 26.4% of all dated deals. That is a gap of 15.1 points, or 1.6 times the practice's rate across the whole deal record. The deal-type labels tell the same story: deals labeled capital markets made up 40.2% of the sector's deals, against 25.7% of all deals. In power and renewables, capital markets lawyers were on 26.0% of deals. Other practices also show up often on oil and gas work. Corporate and M&A lawyers were on 32.3% of the sector's deals, banking and finance lawyers on 7.2% and projects and infrastructure lawyers on 5.9%. One deal can carry lawyers from more than one practice, so these figures measure presence, not a division of the work. For an oil and gas issuer, capital markets depth at outside counsel is a core test, and it should be checked even when the mandate on the table is a different kind of deal.

Turn the view around and the sector shrinks. Oil and gas was the client sector on 432 capital markets deals over 12 months, or 3.4% of the practice's 12,684. Across all dated deals, the sector's share was 2.2%, so oil and gas turns up in capital markets work at 1.5 times its rate in the full deal record. Banks and financial institutions were the client sector on 13.8% of capital markets deals and pharma and biotech on 13.7%. Many deals carry no sector label, so these shares leave much of the practice unassigned and are not a split of it. In the Sartori & Partners deal record a count means matters on record, not fees. The point for an issuer is that a busy capital markets partner may still see few oil and gas offerings in a year. Ask the proposed lead how many oil and gas deals they worked on in the past 12 months, and who on the team handled the sector diligence.

Oil and gas deals held flat (+5.3%) year on year, at 1,012 in the latest settled 12 months against 961 a year earlier. That reading counts every deal in the sector, whatever the practice. The capital markets practice, counted across all its client sectors, rose 10.0%, from 11,838 to 13,024. All dated deals rose 10.6%, from 43,590 to 48,216. No separate trend exists for capital markets deals in oil and gas alone, so these are two readings placed side by side, not one nested in the other. For an oil and gas company, the practical effect is competition for attention: its offerings sit in a steady sector inside a practice whose total deal count grew. Lock in the team and the timetable together, and ask how many live deals the lead partner is carrying.

In the Sartori & Partners lateral database, capital markets partner moves held flat (+1.1%), at 185 against 183 in the prior 12 months. Moves at every level in the practice held flat (+6.7%), at 609 against 571. A lateral move is a lawyer changing firms, so these counts show how much talent is in motion, not the size of any firm's team. Over three years, 2.6% of capital markets lateral moves ended in Houston, against 23.2% in New York. Set that beside the sector's deal map, where Houston comes first, and the Houston capital markets lateral market looks thin for the volume of work done there. For a company, the sensible course is to judge a firm's Houston capital markets team as it stands today, by the deals its partners ran, rather than on hires the firm says it plans to make.

No firm list ranks capital markets work on oil and gas deals alone. The two lists below measure different things. The oil and gas list covers all of the sector's deal work, in every practice. The capital markets list covers the practice's deals in every client sector. Five names appear on both: Latham & Watkins, Davis Polk & Wardwell, Sidley Austin, White & Case and Simpson Thacher & Bartlett. The other five on the oil and gas list are Vinson & Elkins, Kirkland & Ellis, Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher, Baker Botts and Milbank. Each firm shows as a rank and a band of deals advised, never an exact count; the first firm on the oil and gas list sits in the 151-250 band. An issuer building a panel can read the overlap as a short list with volume on both sides, then ask every firm on either list for its own oil and gas offering record and the office its team works from.

Start the search in Texas. Houston lawyers worked on 48.2% of the sector's deals and Dallas lawyers on 22.2%, so a panel without a Texas office misses where the work is done. Expect capital markets lawyers on a large share of your deals, 41.5% in this sector against 26.4% overall, and weigh that depth when you choose outside counsel for any mandate. Test sector experience directly, because oil and gas is 3.4% of the practice's deals. Book early: the practice's deal count rose 10.0% while your sector held steady, so partner time is spread across more work from other sectors. Judge the team in front of you, since capital markets partner moves held flat (+1.1%). Sartori & Partners builds these figures from public law-firm announcements, firm websites and professional profiles, checked monthly.