Meet The Shareholder: Kendor P. Jones
Q. Why did you decide to become a lawyer?
A. I really wanted to teach at the college level. However, during my senior year of college, a graduate student discouraged me from pursuing my dream of becoming a professor – he cautioned that life as a college professor meant living in random and undesirable towns and the likelihood of earning very little money. I took the GRE and the LSAT but obviously decided to attend law school. I am lucky enough now to do both – I also teach Oil and Gas law at the Sturm College of Law at the University of Denver.
Q. Did you always intend to work as an oil and gas attorney?
A. My first job out of law school was with a Wall Street law firm where one of our large clients was Union Pacific Corporation. After a few years of practicing at the firm, my boss became the General Counsel at Union Pacific and I joined his in-house staff.
Q. How did you come to join Welborn, Sullivan Meck & Tooley?
A. When I retired from Union Pacific, I interviewed at a dozen firms in Denver including Welborn – Jeff Welborn represented Union Pacific for its Oil and Gas Conservation Commission work so there was a pre-existing relationship. Since I was coming from a large legal department, I was inclined to join a smaller firm… and Jeff Welborn is a very persuasive person.
Q. Who has been the biggest influence on your legal career?
A. Bill McDonald for whom I worked both at the firm where I started my career and at Union Pacific. He was a very tough task master and not always sensitive to other’s feelings, but working for him was an incredible learning experience.
Q. Name one skill that you think every good lawyer should have.
A. Every good lawyer needs the ability to communicate effectively, both orally and in writing.
Q. If you could pass on one piece of advice to a new associate, what would it be?
A. Try to keep a reasonable balance between your personal life and your career. This is obviously easier said than done, but you don’t want to look back on your life and wish you had lived it differently.
Q. Is there a transaction you’ve worked on that has been particularly interesting or unusual?
A. In March of 1994, Union Pacific Resources Co., a subsidiary of Union Pacific Corp., acquired Amax Oil & Gas Inc. for $819 million in cash and stock, combined with a sale of almost $100 million of Amax’s assets to Questar Corp. It was a challenging and high profile matter that was complicated because of the timing of the acquisition and sale of assets, the ERISA and due diligence complexities of the stock purchase and the sheer number of moving parts. There were also numerous people and law firms involved on behalf of Amax and Questar, both of which are sophisticated parties. There was nothing run-of-the-mill about this transaction.
Q. What have you been working on lately?
A. I’ve been working on two asset dispositions for approximately $50-55 million for one client to two purchasers. I’ve also been reviewing a number of oil and gas leases in the Niobrara Formation in Colorado because of the current interest and the resulting increase in leasing activity in the new and rapidly developing play in Wyoming and Colorado.
Q. What do you enjoy most about your job?
A. I really enjoy practicing law, but I particularly like the management function that I perform at the firm. I think the skills that I developed running the legal department at Union Pacific translate into the skills I need to run a law firm. I deal with similar issues and the management duties are a nice break from the practice of the law.
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