Chris Eckels

Attorney

Chris joined Lear & Lear in September 2023. Since then his work has primarily focused on preparing drilling and division order title opinions for oil and gas clients operating in Utah and North Dakota.* Additionally, he prepares pleadings for regulatory matters before the Utah Board of Oil, Gas, and Mining, and assists clients with enforcing orders issued by the Board. At the request of clients, he has also researched and opined on narrowly focused issues such as whether sand deposits potentially suitable for use as frac sand belong to the owner of the surface estate or the underlying severed mineral estate.

From 2021 to 2023 he performed similar title work for another mineral law firm, focusing on oil and gas clients in Utah, Colorado, Wyoming, and North Dakota.* He was often called upon to analyze and interpret unconventional language in provisions of oil and gas leases. He also negotiated a client’s complex mineral rights acquisitions from overseas owners, including multiple related curative probates to clear title.

Before becoming an attorney, Chris spent four years—plus occasional periods between law school semesters, or while awaiting bar exam results—as a title paralegal at a highly respected boutique mineral law firm in Salt Lake City, where he examined and chained title documents regarding private, fee, State, Tribal, and Federal lands, plotted metes-and-bounds tracts, learned how to calculate net revenue interests, and helped prepare title opinion comments and requirements.

His mineral title experience goes back even farther than that, though. As an independent field landman, he abstracted title in multiple counties and states, with a particular emphasis on Utah’s Uinta Basin, where he was born and raised by two geologists, both of whom have worked in extractive mineral resources industries. In fact, his first taste of mineral title work was at the age of 11, when he spent part of his summer vacation helping a landman pull documents at the Uintah County Recorder’s Office.

Before joining Lear & Lear, Chris had previously practiced as a civil litigator, with experience ranging across insurance defense, contract disputes, property boundary disputes, and victims’ rights work. During his third year of law school, he got to peak behind the curtains of the professional sports world when he arranged an in-house clinical internship with the VP of Legal for the ownership group of the Real Salt Lake, Utah Royals FC, and Real Monarchs professional soccer clubs.

Chris enjoys sports and outdoor recreation, particularly skiing and soccer; history; and the arts—he has extensive theatre experience, and plays several instruments, specializing in alto saxophone.

Academic Research and Publications

Us & Them: Symbols and Violent Identity Conflict, Address at the 19th International Roundtable for the Semiotics of Law (May 23, 2018) (unpublished presentation), hosted by Örebro University (Sweden)
Eckels, C.W. (2021). The Antisocial Fabric: German and American Approaches to Flags As Hate Speech in Public Demonstration, in: Flags, Color, and the Legal Narrative: Public Memory, Identity, and Critique 309–331 (Anne Wagner and Sarah Marusek eds., Law and Visual Jurisprudence, vol 1. Springer, Cham 2021) https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-32865-8_16
- This volume was awarded the 2021 Gherardi Davis Prize by The Flag Research Center at the University of Texas School of Law.
- This chapter was included on the syllabus, and Chris appeared (virtually) as a guest lecturer, for a Duke University seminar course titled “Symbols of Nationalism: The Power and Danger of Flags” (Fall 2021).
Inside the Mississippi Flag Change, Panel Discussion at the 55th Annual Meeting of the North American Vexillological Association (June 12, 2021) (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4hyVZGa9zBA), held virtually due to the COVID-19 pandemic
Quinney Research Fellow, 2L Academic Year (2017–2018)
- Supported various professors’ research, e.g., by analyzing legal issues at the local, state, federal, and international levels and drafting research memoranda on issues such as corporate social responsibility, the opioid crisis, global federalism, and approaches to regulating autonomous vehicles at the local, State, and Federal levels within the U.S.
Original Research Assistant (2008–2010) to Prof. Dylan Penningroth for various research projects through the American Bar Foundation, most notably culminating in the 2012 MacArthur Genius Fellowship-winning project titled “Local Courts and African-American Life, c.1865-1930.”

Admissions

Chris is admitted to practice in the following jurisdictions:

Utah State Courts
United States District Court, District of Utah

Practice Areas

Drilling & Division Order Title Opinions
Acquisition Opinions
Supplemental Title Opinions
Curative Title Work

Professional & Civic Associations

Utah State Bar, Active Member (2019-present)
Foundation for Natural Resources and Energy Law, Member (2022-present)
Utah Association of Professional Landmen, Member (2012-2016, 2021-present); Secretary (2014-2015); Vice President (2015-2016)
American Association of Professional Landmen, Active Member (2012-2016)
Northwestern University Club of Utah, Founder/President (2014-present)
Black Physicians of Utah, Advisory Board Member (2022-present)
North American Vexillological Association, Member (2018-present)

Education

Northwestern University (B.A., 2009) (Theatre [Honors] and History)
University of Utah, S. J. Quinney College of Law (J.D., 2019)
- CALI Excellence for the Future Award (Legal Methods, Fall 2016)
- Outstanding Achievement Award (Drafting: Contracts, Fall 2017)
- Outstanding Achievement Award (Lawyering Skills, Fall 2018)