"We're not seeing more work, just different types of work," Komoroski said, explaining that his firm has started to see more transactional work on the wet gas side than on the dry gas side.
But Komoroski also made it clear that while Chesapeake is not the only company to shift its focus from dry to wet gas, the companies' financial issues are not indicative of the health of the drilling industry as a whole.
The company has come under media scrutiny recently as its shareholders call for the ousting of Chief Executive Officer Aubrey McClendon in the face of mounting debt.
"We don't see any ripple effect [across the industry] from the travails Chesapeake has been experiencing," Komoroski said.
Meanwhile, Colosimo said Chesapeake continues to be Burleson's largest client.
He added that having a presence throughout the Appalachian Basin has helped his firm to remain busy, even as drilling in Northeastern Pennsylvania has slowed.
"We're fortunate that our work is diversified across the basin," he said. "If we just did work in the Northeast, we would be struggling right now, but the fact is that we have a lot of work in the southwestern part of Pennsylvania, as well as a lot of work in Ohio and West Virginia. As a result, we're able to move with the rigs."
Meanwhile, Colosimo said, meager gas prices have actually led to more transactional work for Burleson, as major companies that can afford to take risks in the short-term while prices are low in hopes of turning a profit in the future buy acreages from smaller companies that don't have the same luxury.
"What happens in a price environment like this one is certain people can't afford to be in anymore, so they sell [their acreage] or their strategy changes and that tends to favor the big guys, the Exxons of the world, because they can weather the price," he said. "Exxon, the biggest producer of natural gas in the world, can look out 15 or 20 years like it's nothing, whereas a smaller company may only be looking ahead quarterly or annually."
Steve Saunders, a Scranton-based oil and gas lawyer who focuses his practice on representing landowners, said he has seen a number of natural gas companies turn their attention away from Northeastern Pennsylvania in terms of new transactions, particularly in Bradford and Susquehanna counties.
Subscribe to The Legal Intelligencer
