Quality of People, Depth of Team

Seth Hilton
Partner, Energy Development

Seth Hilton reflects on what drew him to Stoel Rives nearly 20 years ago—and what has kept him there. From the exceptional quality of the energy practice and the brilliance of his colleagues to the firm's investment in attorneys' long-term career development, Seth highlights the people and collaborative culture that define Stoel. With a 200-attorney energy team spanning corporate, tax, real estate, and regulatory work, he explains how the firm's depth of bench allows him to focus on his California energy regulatory niche while ensuring clients receive comprehensive, multidisciplinary support.

Transcript

Seth Hilton. I'm a partner in our energy development group located in San Francisco. I also co-lead our energy industry group. I've been at Stoel almost 20 years at this point and I think the people who I practice with and really their brilliance has made it very enjoyable over the course of my career to practice in the energy space. I also think Stoel, in a lot of ways, invests in their lawyers in ways that maybe some of the other firms don't.

When we hire someone, we expect them to be there—be here for their whole career. So we're looking for them to develop business, to develop their practice, and we invest in them to ensure that they can accomplish that.

I think one of the things that I really enjoy about practicing at Stoel, especially in the energy space, is that we have such a deep bench. And so, if I look at the energy industry group, which I co-lead, we have maybe 200 attorneys that are involved in that group. Now they may be corporate, they may be involved in financing, they may be in real estate, they may be in tax, but they're involved around energy. And so, you know, I can focus on my niche, which is California energy regulatory work, and if I have a tax question, state and federal tax question, I know who to ask and I got somebody on the team to do that. Real estate, same thing. Financing, same thing. We've... California Air Resources Board, somebody handles that. So it's the depth of the bench that ensures that I know clients' concerns in any area can be covered and covered well.