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Speakers

Angela Adolph

Angela AdolphAngie Adolph is a partner in the Baton Rouge office of Kean Miller.  She joined the firm in 2011, and practices in the tax and municipal finance groups. Angie represents Louisiana, national, and international clients in a variety of tax and corporate matters. In addition to representing clients before the Louisiana Board of Tax Appeals, the Louisiana Tax commission, and in the Louisiana courts, she has special experience representing taxpayers in property tax incentive negotiations, including Payments in Lieu of Taxes. Angie is the firm’s representative to the American Property Tax Counsel, an association of property tax firms with members throughout the United States and in Canada.

Angie also has extensive experience in bond transactions and in the development of Public-Private Partnerships and Cooperative Endeavor Agreements. She is a member of the National Association of Bond Lawyers, board member of the Louisiana Chapter of Women in Public Finance and is listed in the “Red Book” of bond professionals.


Paul Simon

Paul SimonPaul B. Simon handles disputes, corporate matters, acquisitions and appeals for the firm’s oil and gas clients. He regularly assists clients with issues arising under Louisiana’s Mineral Code and the industry’s primary agreements (JOA’s, mineral leases, participation agreements, etc.) and with regulatory issues before the Louisiana Department of Natural Resources’ Office of Conservation and the Louisiana State Mineral Board.

Prior to joining the Firm, Paul served as a law clerk to two judges on the federal bench, the Honorable W. Eugene Davis of the United States Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals, and the Honorable D. “Dee” Drell, Chief United States District Judge for the Western District of Louisiana. Paul frequently uses this experience to assist in matters in federal court, including in bankruptcy and appellate matters.

In law school, Paul was a James Kent Scholar and a Harlan Fiske Stone Scholar, the two highest academic honors Columbia Law School awards. He also received the Parker School Recognition of Achievement in International and Comparative Law, was an editor of the American Review of International Arbitration and served as Co-President of the Columbia Society of International Law and Co-Founder and Co-President of the Columbia International Arbitration Association.

Prior to law school, Paul worked as a strategy and management consultant for the consulting firm McKinsey & Company, in its Amsterdam office. He learned Dutch for the posting, adding to the French and Spanish he previously spoke, and to this day Paul maintains a rich network of contacts and knowledge regarding European business. While an undergraduate, Paul was a junior-year selection and President of Phi Beta Kappa.

Paul is a native of Lafayette, Louisiana. For several years he lived out of state, and overseas in Europe and the Middle East. He returned to Lafayette to practice mineral law, raise his daughters and be with family. He is admitted to both the Louisiana and New York bars.


Shawn Daray

Shawn DarayShawn counsels businesses, project developers, community development entities (CDEs), and other nonprofit organizations on the full range of federal tax issues. He has particular experience advising clients on current, industry-specific economic development tax credit opportunities, including new market tax credits; historic rehabilitation tax credits; offshore wind, solar, and other renewable energy tax credits; and carbon sequestration tax credits; among other federal incentives.

Shawn’s clients include upstream, midstream, and downstream oil, gas, and energy companies; manufacturers, retailers, and other energy end users across numerous industries; and participants in public-private partnerships and infrastructure projects. Well versed in the technologies — such as blue and green hydrogen — that are currently the focus of federal incentives, Shawn also recognizes that many of these targeted programs are time-limited. With this in mind, he helps clients develop effective strategies to maximize these opportunities before they expire.

He also advises clients on niche federal tax issues, including programs associated with fuel plants regulated by the Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau (TTB), helping companies and organizations navigate the complex processes required to identify, apply for, and comply with the requirements of these unique federal tax regulations.

In addition to his federal tax and tax credit counsel, Shawn advises nonprofit entities on formation issues, including qualifying for 501(c)(3) status, tax reporting, and other day-to-day and strategic issues.

Shawn also provides estate planning services to high-net-worth individuals and families and closely held companies. He drafts and establishes multigenerational trusts, grantor trusts and grantor-retained annuity trusts (GRATs), qualified personal residence trusts (QPRTs), and other trust structures, and he documents a wide range of other complex estate planning transactions.

Shawn is a regular contributor to the firm’s blogs and client alerts and speaks frequently to industry and legal groups and at client seminars on emerging federal tax issues. Prior to joining Jones Walker, Shawn served as an extern for the Litigation Division of the Louisiana Department of Revenue, where he published articles on the effects of the Amazon Tax for online retailers and state retroactive tax laws.


Dionne Rousseau

Dionne RousseauDionne M. Rousseau is a partner in the Corporate Practice Group at Jones Walker LLP. She has served as lead outside corporate and securities counsel for 12 public companies, and as boardroom lawyer for four of these entities. With more than 25 years of experience handling corporate finance and mergers and acquisitions transactions, Dionne has led client service teams and deal teams for clients in industries including oil and gas services, energy exploration and production, marine construction and hard rock mining. Dionne provides ongoing corporate, securities law and corporate governance advice to public companies and their boards of directors, including requirements and trends in Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) matters.​​


Jamie Manuel

Coming Soon


Professor Keith Hall

Keith B. Hall is the Nesser Family Chair of Energy Law at Louisiana State University, where he serves as Director of the Mineral Law Institute and Director of the John P. Laborde Energy Law Center.  He teaches Mineral Rights, International Petroleum Transactions, Energy Law & Regulation, and Civil Law Property.  In addition to teaching energy law courses at LSU, Professor Hall has taught: International Petroleum Transactions as a Visiting Professor at Baku State University in Azerbaijan; International Energy Transactions and also Energy & the Environment as a Visiting Professor at the University of Pittsburgh School of Law; and Introduction to Mineral Law as an adjunct professor at Loyola School of Law in New Orleans.

Professor Hall is co-author of three books on oil and gas law—International Petroleum Law and Transactions (2020), Hydraulic Fracturing: A Guide to Environmental and Real Property Issues (2017), and The Law of Oil and Gas: Cases and Materials (2016).  In addition, the is co-editor of the book The Regulation of Decommissioning, Abandonment and Reuse Initiatives in the Oil and Gas Industry (2020).  His shorter publications have focused on a variety of oil gas issues.  He is a frequent speaker at national and international oil and gas conferences.  Before joining the LSU Law School faculty, he practiced law for 16 years, with a focus on oil and gas litigation and transactions.

Professor Hall is Editor-in-Chief of the Institute for Energy Law’s Oil & Gas E-Report.  He also serves on the Association of International Petroleum Negotiators’ Education Advisory Board, the Rocky Mountain Mineral Law Foundation’s Board of Directors, and the Institute for Energy Law’s Executive Committee, and the Energy & Mineral Law Foundation’s Executive Committee.  He is a former Chairman of the Oil & Gas Committee of the American Bar Association’s Section of Environment, Energy and Resources.  In addition, he is a registered professional engineer (inactive status) who worked for eight years as a chemical engineer before attending law school.