David Bates is a partner in the Energy Practice Group at Gardere Wynne Sewell LLP in Houston.  David has over 30 years of experience in the energy business, starting in 1981 with Exxon Corporation (now ExxonMobil).  He spent over sixteen years with ExxonMobil, including six years at their world headquarters in Irving.  Mr. Bates has been a partner at Gardere since 1999.  He specializes in litigation and trials with a focus on commercial upstream disputes and environmental matters.  He has tried many complex cases in state and federal court, as well as significant arbitrations on issues.  His upstream experience includes disputes related to large asset acquisitions such as title disputes, disputes over royalty calculations, and cases involving allegedly defective pipe, downhole pipe failures, contract interpretation disputes, and a variety of other matters.  In the environmental arena, he has handled dozens of oilfield contamination cases, superfund litigation, and regulatory disputes concerning groundwater and air contamination.  Recently, his practice has focused on issues surrounding hydraulic fracturing techniques and potential impacts to groundwater, including political developments in Congress and in state legislatures, review of regulatory developments in the key oil producing states, and emerging trends in litigation. 

Mr. Bates graduated from Northwestern University Law School and has an undergraduate degree from Knox College.  He is licensed to practice in all state and federal courts in the State of Texas and before the United States Courts of Appeal for the Fifth and Tenth Circuits.  He is a member of the State Bar of Texas, the American Bar Association, the Houston Bar Association, and he is on the Advisory Board for the Institute for Energy Law.