Brooks Richardson is a Shareholder at GableGotwals. His practice focuses on complex business litigation, including class actions, energy disputes, including both payment, ownership, and environmental litigation, employment, indemnity and insurance coverage disputes, insurance bad faith, and public contract challenges. In addition, Brooks provides general counsel on regulatory compliance, contract and vendor management, records and information governance, privacy and cybersecurity, crisis response and business continuity planning, employment law, and enterprise risk management.
He is an experienced attorney with a proven track record of enabling and empowering businesses with creative and practical legal guidance and business strategies. With 13 years of complex commercial litigation experience, and 10 years of in-house legal experience at a publicly-traded energy company, Brooks knows how to deliver success in the courtroom, the conference room, and the board room. His clients and former employers have described his strengths as “strategic,” “detail-oriented,” “creative and innovative problem-solver,” “impeccable integrity,” “persuasive and clear,” and “skillful navigator.”
Brooks combines his litigation and in-house experience to counsel clients in the myriad ways to avoid expensive litigation, including best practices for implementing employment policies and procedures as well as compliance and regulation management programs.
Prior to joining the Firm, Brooks was the Vice President & Deputy General Counsel of Continental Resources, Inc. He also served as a judicial law clerk to the Honorable Dean Whipple in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Missouri.
Litigation
- Defense in environmental contamination and remediation disputes.
- Representation of payors in appeals and court challenges to royalty payment orders from the Office of Natural Resources Revenue (ONRR).
- Defense in collective actions brought under Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA).
- Representation of companies and individuals in trade secret misappropriation litigation.
- Representation of manufacturers in warranty and product defect litigation.
- Led and participated in defense teams for 12 different class actions in Oklahoma, Arkansas, Washington, Oregon, North Dakota, and Colorado.*
- Defended multiple royalty and working interest owner disputes on behalf of oil and gas operator, including oil and gas lease litigation involving commencement of operations, production in paying quantities, continuous drilling, surface damages and reasonable prudent operator standard.*
General Legal Counsel
- Extensive experience counseling clients on employment and regulatory matters, and representing their interests during agency audits and investigations: EEOC, OSHA, EPA, ONRR, BLM, OCC, NDIC, DEQ (multi-state), and State Attorney Generals.
- Provided legal counsel as subject matter expert for oil and gas operator to transform royalty valuation process in order to manage disparate requirements in more than 100,000 lease contracts across multiple jurisdictions with different common law and regulatory requirements.*
Transactional
- Drafted asset sale and purchase agreements, joint ventures, long-term oil and gas marketing, master service agreements, professional service agreements, real estate leases and sales, oil and gas leases, independent contractor agreements, non-disclosure agreements, severance agreements, master subscription agreements, cloud services, SaaS, data licensing, data processing, privacy, technology and security agreements.
- Developing contract forms, templates, and clause libraries, and provided contract training for various business units and contract managers.
*matters handled prior to joining the firm