Liskow is pleased to announce that Shareholder George Arceneaux III has received the Institute for Energy Law (IEL) Lifetime Achievement in Energy Litigation Award. The award was presented at IEL’s 25th Annual Energy Litigation Conference in Houston, Texas.
IEL presents the award each November at its Annual Energy Litigation Conference. It honors an energy litigator whose achievements, over a career or in a particular case or series of cases, have earned the admiration and respect of peers across the industry. George accepted the award at the conference luncheon among his peers and colleagues. It was presented by fellow Liskow attorney and former award recipient Lawrence “Larry” P. Simon, Jr., who nominated him. In his nomination, Larry wrote that “there is no better trial attorney in oil and gas matters in Louisiana than George Arceneaux.” He described George as a lawyer “sought after by oil and gas clients for their toughest cases throughout the state of Louisiana.”
George has spent his entire career in Liskow’s Lafayette office. He joined the firm in 1987 after clerking for Judge Henry A. Politz of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit. His practice has followed the industry’s key issues. In the early years of his practice, he prepared and tried personal injury and occupational exposure cases. He then litigated take-or-pay, royalty valuation, joint operating agreement, and gas processing disputes. After the Louisiana Supreme Court’s 2003 Corbello decision gave rise to modern legacy litigation, he became one of the central lawyers defending industry clients against those environmental claims.
Today his practice covers environmental liability, remediation and cost recovery, CERCLA actions, Oil Pollution Act claims, lease maintenance and royalty disputes, trade secret claims and mass torts. He also appears before the Louisiana Department of Natural Resources and the Louisiana Department of Environmental Quality.
George often leads litigation teams in high-exposure matters and is frequently the lawyer chosen to address the jury. He has defended clients at trial against legacy claims seeking tens of millions of dollars over alleged soil and groundwater contamination. He showed that the conditions at issue were consistent with historic industry practices and posed no serious environmental risk, and the juries returned zero verdicts.
George is a Fellow of the American College of Trial Lawyers, inducted in 2015, and of the American College of Environmental Lawyers. His other honors include multiple Best Lawyers® “Lawyer of the Year” awards, recognition in The Best Lawyers in America® since 2009, Lawdragon’s “500 Leading Litigators in America,” Louisiana Super Lawyers, and Acadiana Profile’s “Top Lawyers.” He was named Louisiana’s Outstanding Young Lawyer in 1994. He is a longtime member of IEL and the Louisiana Oil & Gas Association, and he speaks frequently to clients and at CLE programs on legacy litigation. Throughout his career he has mentored younger lawyers at Liskow and across the profession.
George earned his undergraduate degree with honors from LSU in 1983. He received his J.D. in 1986 from the LSU Paul M. Hebert Law Center, where he wrote for the Louisiana Law Review and was elected to the Order of the Coif.