Profile

James M. Gaitis, Esq. (BA; JD) is the former director of the International Dispute Management Programme and Principal Teaching and Research Fellow at the Centre for Energy, Petroleum and Mineral Law and Policy, University of Dundee, Scotland, UK where he continues to serve as an Honorary Lecturer teaching the annual intensive LLM course in international oil & gas arbitration. He is a Fellow and Chartered Arbitrator of the Chartered Institute of Arbitrators, a Fellow and member of the Board of Directors of the College of Commercial Arbitrators, and a member of a variety of U.S. and international bar associations. He has over 29 years of experience as an oil & gas lawyer and 17 years experience serving as an arbitrator in complex oil and gas and commercial arbitrations. Mr. Gaitis is a frequent author on the topics of domestic and international arbitration and is listed on a variety of domestic and international arbitration panels and rosters, including the CPR Energy, Oil & Gas Panel, the AAA Large, Complex Cas Panel, the AAA National Energy Panel, and the roster of the International Chamber of Commerce.

Mr. Gaitis' experience as trial counsel and/or an arbitrator in oil & gas industry disputes generally includes matters relating to all phases of the business - including upstream, midstream, and downstream activities - and has involved such diverse subjects as natural gas contracts, deregulation and restructuring, joint operating agreements, onshore and offshore oil and gas drilling and production operations, unitization agreements, natural gas marketing, natural gas processing, natural gas, NGL, and flowing oil measurement, coalbed methane measurement and gathering, cogeneration supply contracts, oil field intellectual property/patents (U.S & U.K.), noncompete agreements, restraint of trade, oil field requirements contracts, oil and gas acquisitions, reservoir engineering, and geology. He is a member of the Association of International Petroleum Negotiators and, over the past quarter century, has served on the oil & gas/energy advisory committees of a broad variety of organizations. He currently resides and practices from his offices in Tucson, Arizona.