Lived and worked in Tokyo for 18 months, advising a major trading house on a project at the center of which was an LNG tolling agreement with a U.S. export facility on the Gulf Coast. Japan’s need for LNG has increased since the 2011 tsunami, and since “everybody needs energy,” the global market for LNG will continue to be significant.

In Winston & Strawn’s oil and gas practice, has worked with large and small E&Ps and private financers. All of them “want advisers who offer practical solutions and assess the risks.” Transactional law’s function for the oil and gas industry is in “greater demand” right now, “given the dramatic increase in domestic production and the associated increase in A&D activity.”

Accomplishments: Has JD from the University of Chicago and a bachelor’s from New York University. Clerked for the Hon. Nancy
F. Atlas in Federal District Court for the Southern District of Texas.

On living abroad: “Living in Japan was amazing and rewarding. It’s a spectacular country and a spectacular culture.”

Goals: To build up his knowledge and experience on industry transactional matters, but also to devote time to his family--“balancing that is important to me.”

Career advice: “It’s crucial to find a mentor who is really going to get you involved in projects.” Also, work outside your comfort zone. “It’s critical to make yourself stand out in a crowded field and part of that is that you have to be receptive to new opportunities and embrace them for what they are.”