Ken has served as a trusted legal counselor, advisor, and advocate for businesses and individuals for over 25 years. As an advocate, he has successfully represented clients in trial and appellate proceedings in state and federal courts, as well as in private arbitration. His cases have involved a broad range of matters, including breach of contract, unfair competition, commercial real estate, insurance coverage, trade secrets, non-compete and non-disclosure agreements, employment disputes, whistleblower claims and construction claims/defects.

For the past 20 years, much of Ken’s practice has focused on natural resources law and litigation. Many of his cases have been on the cutting edge of Pennsylvania and West Virginia oil and gas law. He has represented clients in disputes involving farmout agreements; joint operating agreements; interconnection agreements; leasehold acquisitions and assignments; oil and gas leases; oil, gas and coal ownership and title matters; tax sale deeds; surface/mineral rights; rights of way; and investments in oil and gas drilling programs. Several of these cases have involved claims in the tens of millions of dollars.

Ken frequently advises businesses and mineral rights owners on matters pertaining to their property rights and interests. He regularly writes and speaks on oil and gas topics.

Ken also serves as an arbitrator and is on the American Arbitration Association’s National Roster of Arbitrators.

Prior to co-founding Ozdinec & Witzel LLC, Ken was a member at the law firm, Frost Brown Todd. Before that, Ken was with the law firm of Barnes Dulac Watkins (and its predecessor, Watkins Dulac & Roe, P.C.), a boutique law firm with a strong natural resources practice, for nearly 17 years.

Ken graduated from the Dickinson School of Law of the Pennsylvania State University in 1998, where he served as an Articles Editor for the Dickinson Law Review. Immediately after graduating from law school, he served as a law clerk for the Honorable Zoran Popovich of the Superior Court of Pennsylvania.

• Successfully represented publicly traded natural gas producer in proceedings concerning oil and gas lease with a value to client in excess of $50 million.

• Obtained federal court jury verdict in favor of publicly traded natural gas producer on claims brought by landowner/lessor who alleged that producer had tortiously interfered with his employment; and secured judgment in favor of producer following bench trial on claims by the landowner/lessor under a “dual purpose” oil and gas lease that the production rights under the lease had terminated because the lease had only been used for storage. Mason v. Range Resources—Appalachia, LLC, 120 F.Supp.3d 425 (W.D. Pa. 2015).

• Obtained summary judgment in favor of publicly traded natural gas producer on claims by the lessors under three oil and gas leases that their leases terminated at the end of their primary terms where the producer did not exercise its option to extend the leases while they were in their primary term and the lessors did not afford the producer the requisite notice and opportunity to cure specified in the leases.

• Obtained summary judgment in favor of publicly traded natural gas producer on claims by oil and gas lessors that the lessees’ assignments of their leases were improper under the terms of the oil and gas leases. Stricklin v. Fortuna Energy, Inc., Civil Action No. 5:12CV8, 2014 WL 2619587 (N.D. W.Va. Jun. 12, 2014).

• Successfully represented publicly traded natural gas producer in litigation involving nine separate cases pertaining to a total of 17 separate oil and gas leases and 1,600 acres, in which the lessors asserted numerous claims against the producer including fraud, slander of title, improper notarization, and trespass.

• Obtained summary judgment in favor of publicly traded natural gas producer against oil and gas lessors who sought a judicial declaration that their oil and gas lease was invalid as to the shale gas. Affirmed on appeal.

• Successfully represented publicly-traded natural gas producer in litigation brought by overriding royalty interest owner who claimed the producer was not entitled to deduct post-production costs from the overriding royalties.

• Obtained AAA arbitration award in favor of publicly traded natural gas producer on trespass claims brought by a landowner/lessor under a temporary water storage and staging lease agreement. Arbitrator awarded attorney’s fees and costs to natural gas producer.

• Obtained unanimous ruling by panel of three arbitrators (one of whom was appointed by the claimant) in favor of publicly traded natural gas producer on claims brought by a landowner/lessor who sought to compel the producer/lessee to exercise its option to extend oil and gas lease’s primary term for an additional five years.

• Obtained dismissal of all claims (including claims for fraudulent inducement, improper notarization, injunction, declaratory judgment) brought by oil and gas lessors against publicly traded natural gas producer. Dwyer v. Range Resources—Appalachia, LLC, Civil Action No. 5:14CV21, 2014 WL 1648272 (N.D. W. Va. Apr. 24, 2014).

• Obtained preliminary injunction on behalf of a privately held oil and gas company to prevent landowner/lessor from removing production-related equipment from property and declaring oil and gas lease to be invalid. Affirmed on appeal.

• Successfully represented publicly traded natural gas producer and a former landman-employee against claims brought by landowner/lessor; all claims against former employee dismissed, with prejudice, and all claims against natural gas producer dismissed due to arbitration provision. Holmes v. Chesapeake Appalachia, LLC, Civil Action No. 5:11CV123, 2012 WL 3647674 (N.D. W.Va. Aug. 23, 2012)

• Successfully represented publicly traded natural gas producer in arbitration proceedings initiated by another producer seeking approximately $5 million in damages for claims involving alleged breaches of drilling commitments under a farmout agreement.

• Successfully represented publicly traded natural gas producer in ligation brought by landowners who owned “oil” but not “gas” underlying their property and contended that natural gas producer was wrongfully producing “oil” by means of a horizontal Marcellus Shale well that traversed the property.

• Obtained summary judgment from trial court in favor of clients/owners of 16,000-acre coal mine property as to claims raised by individual who claimed ownership of the property under an alleged settlement agreement. Affirmed on appeal.

• Successfully represented privately held oil and gas/coal owner in proceedings brought against the estate of former business partner.

• Successfully represented privately held coal company in litigation against major utility which prematurely terminated coal supply agreement for one of its power plants.

• Secured dismissal of quiet title action against owner of coal mine on preliminary objections.

• Recipient of the Eric W. Springer Professionalism Award from the W. Edward Sell American Inn of Court, January 2018

• American Arbitration Association, Roster of Arbitrators

• Hay-Sell American Inn of Court, Member

• W. Edward Sell American Inn of Court, President, 2012-2014

• J. Reuben Clark Law Society, Member

• Co-presenter, “The Rule of Capture & Subsurface Trespass Claims After Briggs,” Pennsylvania Bar Institute, April 19, 2020

  Co-presenter, “Oil and Gas: Briggs and the Unsettled State of the Law of Capture,” Washington County Winter Bench Bar, March 1, 2019

  Co-presenter, “Emerging Issues in Energy Litigation, Briggs and Beyond,” The Center for American and International Law, 9th Law of Shale Plays Conference, September 6, 2018

  Moderator and panelist, “What Do You Mean We Can’t Do That? – Antitrust Law Implications for Upstream Joint Development Arrangements,” Energy & Mineral Law Foundation, 39th Annual Institute, June 19, 2018

  Co-presenter, “Briggs: Game-Changer for Subsurface Trespass?”, Pennsylvania Bar Institute, May 3, 2018

  Moderator and panelist, “Bad Faith Pooling and Unitization in the Development of Shale Formations,” Energy & Mineral Law Foundation, 36th Annual Institute, June 30, 2015

  Regular guest lecturer on oil and gas law, University of Pittsburgh, Katz School of Business, 2011-present

  Speaker, “Lease Challenges, Disputes and Negotiations,” National Business Institute, 2014

  Speaker, “Pipeline Agreements and Storage Leases,” National Business Institute, 2013

  Co-instructor, “Advanced Legal Drafting for Pennsylvania Paralegals and Basic Legal Drafting for Pennsylvania Paralegals,” 2001-2004

• Co-author, “Leases, Language and Litigation: A Ten-Year Retrospective on the Evolution of Leasing in Appalachia,” 10th Law of Shale Plays Conference, September 4, 2019

  Author, “Pennsylvania’s New Revised Statutory Arbitration Act: What the Oil and Gas Industry Needs to Know”, Pratt’s Energy Law Report, Vol. 19, No. 8 – September 2019.

  Co-author, “Beware the Ides of March – Pa. Appellate Court Allows AG to Pursue UTPCPL Claims Against Oil and Gas Operators”, The Energy Law Advisor, Vol. 13, No. 3 – August 2019.

  Co-author, “The Intersection of Gas and Coal in Pennsylvania”, The Pennsylvania Bar Association Quarterly, July 2018

  Co-author, “What Do You Mean We Can’t Do That? Antitrust Law Implications for Upstream Joint Development Arrangements”, 39 Energy & Min. L. Inst. § 8 (2018)

  Author, ” One to Keep a Close Eye On – Bradford County Permits the Pennsylvania Attorney General to Proceed with Novel Claims Against Two Oil and Gas Operators “, The Energy Law Advisor, March 2018

  Co-author, “Flat-rate Royalty Leases and Section 34 of the Oil and Gas Lease Act,” the PIOGA Press, February 2014

  Co-author, “Public Employees, Expert Testimony and the First Amendment, First Amendment & Media Litigation,” Winter 2004, Vol. 9, No. 2, at 15

  “Medtronic, Inc. v. Lohr and the Power of Preemption: A Pennsylvania Guide to the Preemption of Common Law Tort Claims by the Medical Device Amendment of 1976,” 102 Dickinson Law Review 865, 1998

• The Dickinson School of Law of the Pennsylvania State University, J.D., 1998

• Honors: Dickinson Law Review (Articles Editor, 1997-1998; Associate Editor, 1996-1997)

• Pennsylvania

• West Virginia

• United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit

• United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit

• United States District Court for the Western District of Pennsylvania

• United States District Court for the Northern District of West Virginia

• United States District Court for the Northern District of Florida