Exclusive – Legal & Financial Advisers Feast on Bankruptcy Fees from the Oil Patch

When times were good in the oil patch and crude was selling at a $100 a barrel just three years ago, lawyers and bankers scored record profits advising companies on a record number of mergers, acquisitions, joint ventures and securities offerings. "We are not seeing the wave of E&P bankruptcies that we witnessed earlier, but there is still a lot of distress out there, and there’s still a lot of first lien debt that is non-performing," says Thompson & Knight partner Tye Hancock, who specializes in oil and gas bankruptcy. "A lot of it depends on where the assets are located," Hancock says. "The cost of performing in North Dakota is a lot more than in the Permian Basin."

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