Delivering affordable, reliable, industry-specific general counsel legal services to rapidly growing entrepreneurial businesses.

Clay Chamberlain

Modern Outsourced General Counsel

Process Solutions

Texas & Oklahoma

my profile
The Woodlands, TX & Tulsa, OK / office +1 (918) 938-7944 / phone clay@counselorjd.com / email www.claychamberlain.com / website

Clay Chamberlain

Mission & Purpose

I am an independent general counsel for transaction-heavy businesses in various industry sectors - including energy and medical industries. My broad practice focuses on early and efficient issue-spotting and strategic objectives of my business clients beyond day-to-day operations from a directional problem-solving perspective. I work best with business leaders that have an entrepreneurial mindset at the early rapid growth stage of a business lifecycle. I start with your desired business outcome and work backwards to customize your legal representation to be cost effective for your desire objective. My clients and I frequently develop and engage with alternative fee arrangements that best serve your business needs - including periodic flat fee, performance-based success fee, partial contingency fee, phased fixed fee with collar, and hybrid fee alternative billing structures.

I have worked with: oil and gas companies, hospitals, private equity funds, fund managers, family offices, physician practices, medical device companies, energy services, utilities companies, technology companies, multi-level marketing (MLM) companies, professional consultants, executive employees, real estate developers, transportation companies, and generally will work with anyone with an entreprenuerial spirit looking for modern efficient legal services.

Education
  • J.D., 2011; Washington University School of Law, St. Louis, MO.
  • B.A. (Psychology), 2008; Grinnell College, Grinnell, IA.
Licenses
  • Texas, 2020
  • Oklahoma, 2011
  • United States District Court for Northern District of Oklahoma
  • United States District Court for Eastern District of Oklahoma
  • United States District Court for Western District of Oklahoma
Organizations
  • Oklahoma Bar Association
  • Texas Bar Association
  • Association of Corporate Counsel
  • American Association of Petroleum Landman

Process

By embracing techonology and evaluating each client's specific preferences, I am flexible and quickly adjust the legal solution to meet your objectives - in costs, risk tolerance, and business outcomes. This is an overview of my process.

Step 1

Determine attorney-client fit

Delivery of legal services requires expertise, communication, creativity, and perseverance. It is important that we work well together as a team. If I can't help you, I won't take your case. First step is determining whether this is a good fit.

Step 2

Identify problem source

My value can only be measured by my client's success. Every client success involves applying a legal solution to solve a problem. In order to effectively solve that problem, you must correctly identifying the true problem source - which is not always obvious.

Step 3

Establish "Win" objectives

We must establish your end goal early on. To do so, we must define what success is for you and your expected outcome in the legal matter. I call this establishing your "Win". Your Win may be defending for the least cost possible, shift regulatory conditions impacting your business, or establish business precedent that deters future misconduct.

Step 4

Create cost-effective plan

I'll advise you on the highest value courses of action. We'll customize your Plan to be both cost effective and most likely to achieve your Win. Early on we'll assess scope, people, phases, tasks, deliverables, legal process outsourcing and known risks impacting costs decisions. The Plan will also try to understand the adversary and its counsel, and identify potential pivot points to ensure flexibility.

Step 5

Control and set conditions

Stay ahead of your adversary and control the issues - this applies to both transactions and litigation. With your Win in mind, every strategic decision should develop leverage points, set the conditions for your Win, and ensure you stay in control of the issues. Keeping momentum and intelligently deploying resources from a position of control will help you ensure you get to your Win.

Step 6

Win, debrief and transition

Finish all the way through to your Win. Immediately after the legal matter is complete, we'll quickly gather key team members and evaluate what went well and what to take a look at for improvement. The goal is incremental improvement and awareness to make the next legal matter more efficient and effective. Lastly, we quickly transition the project to your business team to end accrual of legal costs.

Services & Solutions

Serving as independent general counsel overseeing all legal aspects of private equity portfolio companies, oil and gas companies, and medical businesses, my legal services generally fall into the following 4 key legal solutions for businesses.

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Oil & Gas Transactions

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Private Equity & Financing

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Hospitals & Medical Businesses

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Complex Litigation

Industry Sectors

Every industry sector has unique legal problems. Over the years, I have successfully served clients with a variety of legal problems in the following industry sectors.

Professional Experience

My professional experience covers a broad spectrum of business, financial, and regulatory issues from jury trials to boardrooms.

Umbono Capital

(May 2020-PRESENT) General Counsel The Woodlands, TX

Umbono is a Texas-based specialized investment group focused on private equity and venture capital in target sectors, including energy, natural resources, healthcare, and medical technologies. I am responsible for oversight and management of legal matters related to Umbono's investments and portfolio company management across these industry sectors in the US. These legal services often include:

  • managing legal departments portfolio companies,
  • private equity transactions,
  • portfolio company investments,
  • leading legal aspects of all major acquisitions and divestitures,
  • negotiating commercial contracts for portfolio companies,
  • overseeing work of outside counsel for Umbono and portfolio companies, and
  • providing legal guidance to senior management on new legal developments and unique risks related to Umbono's entrance into new target industry sectors and associated legal related investment risks.

I am also responsible for developing technology enhanced comprehensive risk analysis and legal resource management processes and systems for implementation at Umbono and its portfolio companies to analyze and protect Umbono's personnel, assets, and investments.

Troy Energy E&P

(May 2020-PRESENT) General Counsel Oklahoma City, OK

Troy is an oil and gas exploration & production company that owns and operates properties in the lower 48. My legal services include:

  • being legal lead on all major acquisitions and divestitures,
  • managing legal due diligence on acquisition targets,
  • developing company personnel and operational legal policies,
  • ensuring the company operates its oil and gas operations in compliance with regulations,
  • coordinating with land department
  • overseeing work of outside counsel, and
  • providing executives with effective legal advice on implementation of business strategies to preserve and grow asset value.

I am also directly involved in overseeing legal aspects of the company's financing and capitalization.

Baum Glass Jayne Carwile & Peters

(Aug. 2019-PRESENT) Of Counsel Tulsa, OK

I rejoined my former litigation colleague, John Carwile, at Baum Glass Jayne & Carwile ("BGJC") and represent clients with various commercial and business litigation disputes related to unconventional and conventional oil and gas plays. My in-house oil & gas transactional and litigation management experience provides BGJC clients with a broad scope of industry knowledge concerning the following issues, among others:

  • EXPLORATION AND PRODUCTION: Joint operating agreements, joint development agreements, JV agreements, partnership agreements, AMIs, farmout agreements, operating agreements, and DrillCos
  • DRILLING AND OILFIELD SERVICES: Master service agreements, equipment purchases and leases, and other drilling, and service contractor agreements
  • MIDSTREAM PRODUCER SERVICES: Midstream gathering, transportation, storage, and processing agreements
  • CORPORATE GOVERNANCE: LLC agreements, bylaws, board meetings, director/officer duties, change of control, and shareholder/member disputes
  • PROTECTING INFORMATION: NDAs, technology transfers, and unfair competition and trade secret theft prevention

Corterra Energy

(Dec. 2017-May 2020) General Counsel Tulsa, OK

Corterra is a private-equity backed Oklahoma oil and gas E&P company that owns and operates oil and gas properties in the lower 48. I am responsible for:

  • managing the legal department,
  • developing corporate policies,
  • ensuring the company operates in compliance with regulations,
  • being legal lead on all major acquisitions and divestitures,
  • managing and evaluating company litigation,
  • overseeing work of outside counsel, and
  • providing senior management with effective legal advice on implementation of business unit strategy.

I am also directly involved in overseeing legal aspects of the company's financing and capitalization, and land and midstream transactions.

Kante Group

(Dec. 2017-May 2020) General Counsel Sapulpa, OK & Irvine, CA

Kante Group manages the operations and investments of several affiliated companies owned by the founder of SeneGence International (maker of LipSense ®). I am the chief lawyer involved in acquisitions and divestments, real estate development and construction, capital structure and financing, intellectual property, regulatory and legislative solutions, and overseeing work of outside counsel related to their business entities. Additionally, I am also responsible for local Oklahoma legal solutions in coordination with in-house legal in facilitating SeneGence's 10-year plan of expanding operations to Sapulpa, Oklahoma.

CounselorJD

(Nov. 2017-PRESENT) Managing Member Tulsa, OK

CounselorJD provides independent general counsel services serving a few core clients as the point of contact for all legal issues related to the company. I provide the advantage of having a senior attorney to meet all a company's ongoing legal needs while managing the company's outside counsel relationships, all without having to pay for full-time in-house salary or hourly law firm rates. This works great for a growing company looking to control G&A and full-time headcount, while having a senior attorney intimately familiar with all aspects of a company's business and legal issues.

Doxigence

A Privileged Papers Company
(Aug. 2016-PRESENT) President and Co-Founder Tulsa, OK

Doxigence is an information systems consulting and software development company that builds solutions for energy companies that combine natural languaging processing and machine learning with industry specific expertise and legal updates. As a co-founder, I specialize in designing, implementing, and upgrading AI-driven software solutions to manage legal risks in a business's key contracts and documents. We provide the ability to pre-screen contracts, audit existing contract databases, and speed up M&A due diligence.

McDonald, McCann, Metcalf & Carwile

(May 2011-Nov. 2017) Attorney Tulsa, OK

MMMC is a Tulsa-based business law firm with extensive experience in complex litigation and transactions across a broad spectrum of industries, from construction and oil and gas to financial, retail and manufacturing, and real estate. As a young attorney with MMMC, I worked with top-notch, experienced trial lawyers fighting for our clients in tough, complicated and unusual business and regulatory disputes. MMMC was always prepared to take our client's business case to a jury trial and, while at the firm, trial teams I was on took several jury trials to verdict. The years of trial experience with both closely-held and public company clients in bet-the-company litigation has become invaluable to my ability to practically assess risk and important leverage points in complex transactions for my business clients.

Get in touch Today

Please feel free to email or call me with any questions regarding services that I may assist you with.

Phone - Texas

+1 (281) 816-5010

Phone - Oklahoma

+1 (918) 938-7944

Email - General

clay@counselorjd.com

Email - Law Firm

clay@bgjclaw.com

Office - Texas

2829 Technology Forest Blvd STE 450 The Woodlands, TX 77381

Office - Oklahoma

401 S Boston Ave STE 2000 Tulsa, OK 74103

Website - Umbono Captial

www.umbono.us/

Website - Troy Energy E&P

https://troyenergy.com/

Website - BGJCP Law Firm

www.bgjclaw.com/