About Michael
Michael Hancock earned his law degree from Brigham Young University in 2013 after completing undergraduate work at Utah State University, where he received a Bachelor of Landscape Architecture and Environmental Planning in 2009. He combined technical training in land and environmental matters with later legal study. That background informs the practical approach he brings to energy and natural resources issues.
Early in law school he and his peers worked on the Rocky Mountain Mineral Law Foundation’s journal. In 2012 he served as a student editor for the Rocky Mountain Mineral Law Journal, an experience that exposed him to scholarship on mineral rights, energy regulation and related topics. The same year he spent time in Washington as an intern in the Office of the Solicitor at the Department of the Interior, observing federal decision-making on public lands and environmental law.
After law school, Hancock worked as an independent contractor at Robert Anderson Law, P.C. in 2013. That role put him into client files and transactional work shortly after graduation. He also joined professional groups that year, becoming a member of the Texas State Bar Oil & Gas Section and of Texas Young Professionals. Those memberships have been part of his professional network in Texas since 2013.
Hancock’s practice has moved between public-sector exposure and private practice. His time at the Interior’s solicitor’s office gave him familiarity with federal land-use and resource issues. His editorial work sharpened legal analysis on mineral law. The early post-graduate contractor role offered hands-on experience in client matters and firm operations. Taken together, these positions shaped a practice grounded in energy, land use and regulatory questions rather than in litigation alone.
He practices in Texas and is connected to professional activity in the state’s oil and gas community. Colleagues describe him as methodical in research and deliberate in transactional drafting. He has kept ties to academic and professional circles that focus on mineral law and energy regulation, continuing to read and engage with developments that affect industry and public lands.
Hancock is based out of the San Antonio office of Shumway Van & Hansen. He handles matters that intersect property, mineral rights and energy law. His current practice centers on oil and gas matters and related energy law.
