From Fortune 500 corporations to small business energy companies and emerging alternative energy enterprises, Tod advises on the transactional, regulatory, and litigation challenges and opportunities they face daily. Tod has earned his reputation of excellence for guiding clients through the legal challenges associated with all types of offshore, midstream, maritime, and environmental issues, including those involving the Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act, Natural Gas Act, NEPA, Deepwater Port Act, Clean Air Act, Clean Water Act, and Jones Act, among others. These clients also appreciate Tod’s ability to interface with and get the right result when representing and advocating their interests before state and federal regulators, such as the Maritime Administration, Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement, Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, and U.S. Coast Guard on issues involving regulation and permitting, enforcement actions, and dispute resolution.
Notably, Tod brings significant and hands-on experience to supporting energy companies with their large-scale infrastructure projects, including offshore Deepwater Ports, LNG export facilities, carbon capture, emissions reduction technology, and renewable energy ideas. He advises on all aspects of these often intense, fast-paced, and complicated initiatives by advising on issues that range from project planning and development to regulatory compliance, federal permitting, local/state agency approvals, and licensing to project execution and post-implementation.
For many entrepreneurs and smaller businesses, Tod serves as outside general counsel. In addition to advising on, negotiating, and closing a wide variety of contractual arrangements, Tod delivers actionable advice on risk mitigation and commercial planning to meet his client’s short- and long-term commercial objectives.
An experienced litigator and trial attorney, Tod spent most of his career litigating in state, federal, and appellate courts on claims involving complex offshore and maritime issues. He has tried multiple cases to verdict, briefed and argued appeals in both state and federal forums, and mediated nearly one hundred cases to a favorable resolution. Litigating contractual and commercial disputes has allowed Tod to bring a litigation-minded approach to his transactional work, hoping to keep his clients out of court. Tod continues to litigate when necessary, primarily related to environmental permit challenges for infrastructure projects and offshore cases.
Energy company presidents, in-house counsel, and laymen appreciate that Tod takes the time to understand their specific needs and then proactively identify and provide pragmatic action items that can mitigate future problems. Tod believes in productive communication with opposing counsel and matter constituents, often resulting in finding common ground that does not compromise his client’s position. Having conducted hundreds of depositions over the course of his career, Tod relates to all types of individuals at all levels of sophistication – a value-add to every client he feels privileged to serve.
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Loyola University New Orleans College of Law, J.D., cum laude, 2009
- Advocate and Board Member, Trial Advocacy Program
- Recipient, William Crowe Scholar
- LSU, B.S., 2004
Bar Admissions
- Louisiana
- Texas
Courts
- U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Louisiana
- U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Louisiana
- U.S. District Court for the Western District of Louisiana
- U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Texas
- U.S. Court of Appeals, Fifth Circuit
- U.S. Court of International Trade
- “Best Lawyers,” The Best Lawyers in America, 2026
- “Rising Star,” Louisiana Super Lawyers, 2016-2019
- “Leadership in Law Honoree,” New Orleans CityBusiness, 2020