Power Brokers

Alumni of the University of Virginia School of Law are spread across the energy sector, from oil and gas to wind and solar power. The network of graduates is strong within companies like Chevron, Longroad and Dominion.

John Ale ’79

Houston
Senior Vice President, General Counsel and Secretary, Southwestern Energy Co.

• Chief legal and compliance officer of fourth-largest producer of natural gas in Lower 48 states.
• Served as vice president and general counsel of Occidental Petroleum Corp.
• Former partner and head of Houston office for Skadden.
• Former partner and head of London office, Vinson & Elkins.
• Clerked for U.S. Supreme Court Chief Justice Warren E. Burger and Judge Edward Allen Tamm, U.S. Court of Appeals for D.C. Circuit.

Michael Alvarez ’80

San Francisco
Co-Founder and Chief Operating Officer, Longroad Energy

• Responsible for man­aging operations, asset management, construc­tion, human resources, IT and facilities ac­tivities for a renew­able energy developer.
• Former president and chief financial officer of First Wind, an inde­pendent North Amer­ican wind energy company focused on utility-scale wind energy projects, sold to SunEdison in 2015.
• Project director for development of $2.3 billion, 1,700-kilometer TransCaspian natural gas pipeline for PSG In­ternational in London.
• Partner with San Francisco law firm Thelen, Marrin, Johnson & Bridges.

Carlos M. Brown ’99

Richmond, Va.
Senior Vice President and General Counsel, Dominion Energy Inc.

• Leads law department at country’s fourth-larg­est (by market cap) com­bined electric and gas energy company with more than 50 lawyers re­sponsible for all state and federal regulatory rep­resentation, litigation, commercial transactions, and merger and acqui­sition representation.
• Closed more than $20 billion in securi­ties capital market and mergers and acquisi­tions transactions.
• Served as Domin­ion’s director of alter­native energy busi­ness development and as director of fleet of seven power plants.
• By age of 30, co-founded Virginia’s sec­ond-largest minority-owned transactional law firm, Brown Martin
• Appointed by Virginia governors to the Com­monwealth Transporta­tion Board, the Board of Visitors of Christopher Newport University and the Virginia Small Busi­ness Advisory Board, and to transition teams.

Robert Burke ’87

Franklin, Tenn.
Executive Vice President and General Counsel, Aries Clean Energy

• General counsel for energy companies focused on thermal and renewable electric gen­eration and energy distri­bution within U.S., Latin America and Europe.
• Served in leadership positions in a broad spectrum of energy com­panies, including Edison Mission Energy, PPL Global, Competitive Power Ventures and Vogt Power International.
• Practice has encom­passed mergers and acquisitions, power and infrastructure developments, and project financings.
• Managed corporate governance, govern­ment affairs, and com­pliance on behalf of multinational compa­nies, and has served on boards of private and publicly traded com­panies headquartered in U.S. and abroad. 

Christine “Chris” Levering Cavallo ’95

San Ramon, Calif.
Assistant Secretary and Managing Counsel, Chevron Corp.

• As a member of Chev­ron’s Corporate Gover­nance department, has responsibility for sup­porting corporate sec­retary and chief gover­nance officer in providing legal advice to the boards, board committees, ex­ecutive leadership, and business units in areas of corporate and se­curities law and cor­porate governance.
• Served in multiple legal positions, includ­ing as group vice presi­dent, associate general counsel and assistant sec­retary for Polycom Inc. for more than 11 years.

Patrick Conlon ’83

Houston
Executive Counsel — Corporate Litigation and Investigations, Exxon Mobil Corp.

• Responsible for a varied docket of liti­gation matters for Exxon Mobil, including climate change litiga­tion, Alien Tort Statute and Foreign Corrupt Practices Act matters.
• After graduation, served in Manhattan District Attorney’s Office. Later became deputy bureau chief, supervising at­torneys in Special In­vestigations and serving as first chair in more than 40 felony jury trials.

Tom Denison ’86

Laguna Beach, Calif.
Managing Partner, RNS Capital Partners

• For the past 10 years, has served as manag­ing partner of closely held private equity firm RNS Capital Part­ners, investors in energy and technology com­panies, and served as a board member or ex­ecutive chairman on several private compa­nies in clean tech and technology industry.
• Worked his way through college doing title work for Holland & Hart in oil and gas field.
• Partner with Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher, spe­cializing in private equity and mergers and acqui­sitions in energy field.
• Served as managing director and general counsel of First Reserve Corp., a private equity firm specializing in energy industry, par­ticipating in deals from coal mining to hydro­gen tank manufacturers.
• More than 10 years teaching short courses at the Law School.

Thomas F. Farrell II ’79

Richmond, Va.
Chairman, President and CEO, Dominion Energy Inc.

• Formerly executive vice president and chief operating officer of Dominion.
• Presiding director of Altria Group Inc. and a member of the board of AEGIS Security Insurance Co.
• Former member and rector of the University of Virginia Board of Visitors, and former chairman of Governor’s Commission on Higher Education.

Chris Hayes ’06

Bangkok
Senior Counsel, Chevron Asia South Ltd.

• Provides legal advice related to Chevron assets in Myanmar, China, Bangladesh, Vietnam, Cambodia and Thailand.
• Served four years as lead counsel for Chevron’s global drilling and completions function.
• Chairman of the Chevron Law Function Diversity Council for four years.

Euclid Irving ’76

New York
Managing Principal, Blue Energy Alliance

• Developer of integrated solar cell and energy storage power projects for commercial and industrial customers.
• Focused on a variety of projects in U.S. and abroad, and in oversight of power supply, risk, financing and other issues facing electric utility industry.
• Served as a partner with Paul Hastings’ financial services practice group, and as a partner at Mudge Rose.
• Formerly of counsel with Jones Day’s energy group.
• Serves on board of Green Mountain Power Corp., an electric utility and subsidiary of GazMetro.

Bobbie L. King Jr. ’09

Miami/Juno Beach
Senior Attorney, NextEra Energy, Inc.

• Oversees all legal operations of NextEra Energy Partners, a publicly listed yieldco that owns over 30 wind and solar energy facilities and seven natural gas pipelines across the United States.
• Negotiates and executes acquisitions and divestitures, whether through exclusive negotiations or auction processes. Drafts and negotiates purchase and sale agreements, merger agreements, transition services agreements, nondisclosure agreements, exclusivity agreements and investment bank engagement letters.
• Coordinates corporate finance initiatives, including equity and debt capital market transactions, interest rate hedging transactions, project and holdco debt financing, and joint venture transactions.
• Supervises SEC filings and securities law compliance matters, as well as corporate governance matters.
• Former associate with Boston, New York and London offices of Skadden.

Vanessa Kwong ’06

San Francisco
Counsel, Longroad Energy

• Responsible for all aspects of project development, finance, mergers and acquisitions, asset management, and operations and maintenance for renewable projects at Longroad under Michael Alvarez ’80.
• Began career at Morgan, Lewis & Bockius, focusing on project finance and development.
• Recently closed sale, financing and start of construction of largest solar project in Texas.

Amy Lincoln ’02

San Ramon, Calif.
Supervising Counsel, Environmental & Safety Law Group, Chevron Corp.

• As the lead safety and environmental lawyer for Chevron’s Downstream, Chemicals and Midstream division, has responsibility for providing environmental and safety legal advice to company’s refining, petrochemical manufacturing, and fuels sales and marketing divisions worldwide.
• Received Chairman’s Award, one of the company’s highest honors, in 2018 as part of the team that represented the company in the 2017 legislative renewal of California’s Greenhouse Gas Cap-and-Trade Program.

Lars Norell ’98

New York
Managing Partner, Altus Power Management

• Clean energy investor with a focus on building and growing ventures in the clean energy markets, primarily in solar power.
• Founder and president of Altus Power, an investment company that has grown to become one of the largest platforms in the U.S. for originating, funding and managing distributed generation solar energy assets.
• Served as a partner at Cohen & Co., running the alternative asset and capital markets groups.
• Ran a structured credit desk at Bank of America Merrill Lynch after spending several years at Credit Suisse.

R. Hewitt Pate ’87

San Ramon, Calif.
Vice President and General Counsel, Chevron Corp.

• As Chevron’s chief legal officer since 2009, directs worldwide legal affairs and serves on Executive Committee.
• Long-time partner at Hunton & Williams in Washington, D.C., where he headed the firm’s global competition practice.
• Served as assistant attorney general for the Antitrust Division, U.S. Department of Justice, and deputy assistant attorney general.
• Taught as Ewald Distinguished Professor of Law at the Law School in 1999.
• Clerked for U.S. Supreme Court Justices Anthony M. Kennedy and Lewis F. Powell Jr., and for Fourth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals Judge J. Harvie Wilkinson III ’72.

Shannon O. Pierce ’01

Atlanta
Vice President for Operations, Nicor Gas, the largest subsidiary of Southern Co. Gas

• Provides strategic leadership and direction for the company’s Illinois natural gas operations. 
• Served as vice president of external affairs for the southern operations division, responsible for regulatory and governmental affairs for Atlanta Gas Light, Chattanooga Gas and Florida City Gas.

Kwame K. Satchell ’94

Houston
Supervising Counsel, Organizational Capability, Chevron Corp.

• Oversees programming related to the development and training of legal professionals and leads the law function’s diversity and inclusion efforts.
• Served as a 2013 Leadership Council on Legal Diversity Fellow and former chair of Chevron’s Law Function Diversity Council. 
• Previously led Chevron’s Law Academy team and the Financial and Commercial Services Group in Houston, and led the San Joaquin Valley Business Unit legal team in Bakersfield, Calif.

Christopher Ray ’95

Dallas
Advisory Partner, NGP Energy Capital Management

• Has held various roles at NGP Energy Capital Management, which has a family of private equity investment funds with over $20 billion of cumulative equity commitments organized to make direct investments in the energy sector.
• Joined NGP first as general counsel, then became a managing director, and later joined the firm’s Executive Committee. In those roles, provided legal counsel, investment opportunity evaluation, transaction structuring, negotiation and execution, portfolio management and investment monitoring, and firm management.

Carolyn Tillman ’84

Houston
Managing Counsel, Occidental Oil and Gas Corp.

• Supports multiple aspects of both domestic and international oil and gas operations.
• Provides legal support for commercial transactions, intellectual property projects, regulatory matters, ethical business conduct compliance and antitrust compliance.
• International practice includes short- and long-term assignments in United Arab Emirates, Libya, Oman and Qatar.
• Experienced the “Arab Fall” firsthand while living and working in Libya when the civil war started in 2011.

Katherine Beury Valdelievre ’09

Charlottesville, Va.
Real Estate Counsel, Apex Clean Energy

• Drafts and negotiates leases, easements, purchase agreements and deeds for developing commercial scale wind and solar energy projects in multiple states.
• Negotiates real estate provisions of purchase and sale agreements for sale of wind and solar energy projects, and crossing agreements with oil and gas companies and utilities in preparation for financing and sale of such projects.
• Acted as lead real estate counsel in construction financing, tax equity financing, and sale of a majority interest in a 217-megawatt renewable energy portfolio consisting of two wind energy projects located in Floyd County, Texas, and a solar project located on U.S. Army Garrison Fort Hood.  

Re-energized: Tim Goodell ’84 Helps Hess Navigate Past Downturn