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Tom joined Gordon Arata as a partner in April 2005 after practicing law for twenty years in Lafayette, Louisiana with two other firms. His practice focuses primarily on oil and gas law, including all types of oil and gas related contracts, transactions and complex litigation. He earned his bachelor’s degree from the University of Southwestern Louisiana in 1982 and obtained his juris doctorate in 1985 from Louisiana State University. He is a member of the Lafayette Parish and Louisiana State Bar Associations and is also a member of the U.S. Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals Bar Association. Mr. Jorden has written and spoken on many topics related to oil and gas operations. Among those are "AAPL Model Deepwater Operating Agreement," by Bill Moore and R. Thomas Jorden, Jr., HAPL Spring Technical Workshop, April 12, 2001; "Subleases, Overriding Royalty Interests and Reversionary Rights," by R. Thomas Jorden, Jr. and Margaret D. Swords, Landman, May/June 2001; "The 1996 API Model Form of Offshore Operating Agreement," 43rd Mineral Law Institute, Baton Rouge, Louisiana, March 28-29, 1996; "Joint Operating Agreements 101, A Back to Basics Review," AAPL 42nd Annual Meeting and International Conference, Albuquerque, New Mexico, June 19-21, 1996; "The Interplay Between Operating Agreements and Unit Orders in Establishing Ownership of Production", Landman, November/December, 1988. Mr. Jorden has had extensive involvement in the drafting of model form offshore operating agreements with both the American Petroleum Institute and the American Association of Professional Landmen (AAPL) resulting in the following model forms in use in the Gulf of Mexico: API-5UO5-1996, AAPL-710-2002, and the AAPL-810-2000. He was recently invited to participate as a member of a subcommittee of the AAPL OCS Committee to tune up the AAPL-810-2000 Deepwater Operating Agreement. He is a member of the Advisory Council of the Louisiana Mineral Law Institute, a member of the AAPL, the AAPL Forms Committee, the Louisiana Oil and Gas Association, and the Independent Petroleum Association of America. | 