Ride Like the Wind: Selected Issues in Multi-Party Wind Lease Negotiations

Abstract

The large-scale wind industry arrived in Texas in the early years of the twenty-first century with the intensity of a spring tornado. It was a welcome relief to farmers and ranchers beset by years of no rain and falling prices, and they lined up in droves to hear about and sign new wind leases. It was a new dawn for energy lawyers too. Gone were the days of one-on-one representation in the leasing of land. The new era required landowner attorneys to represent dozens or perhaps hundreds of people at a time. This is the story of the issues and challenges brought by the concurrent rise of wind development and multi-party wind lease negotiations in Texas.

Keywords: wind, Texas, wind leases, energy lawyers, multi-party wind lease negotiations