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Texas firms have paid close attention this year as prominent members of Big Law, such as White & Case and Shearman & Sterling, opened offices in the Lone Star State and other firms lapped up laterals. But it's not only big-name firms that are expanding in Texas.

Manning & Kass, Ellrod, Ramirez, Trester, a 175-lawyer firm, opened an office in Dallas earlier this month that is initially being staffed by partners who moved to Texas from the firm's California offices. Segal McCambridge Singer & Mahoney, which is based in Chicago and has an office in Austin, has now expanded with an office in Houston with one lateral partner hire. The firm has more than 140 lawyers.

The lure of work in the energy industry is an often-cited reason why out-of-state firms move into Texas. But firms often already have clients in Texas and open an office to provide better service to those clients. The bottom line, according to law firm consultant Kent Zimmermann, is that firms follow the money. “They generally want to grow where the money is. They look at New York, the Bay Area—and Texas is pretty high on their list,” he said.

Zimmermann, who is based in Chicago with the Zeughauser Group and does work in the Texas market, said Texas is appealing to firms of all sizes that are in a growth mode.

“The local firm wants to be regional. The regional firm wants to be national. The national firm wants to be global,” he said.

It's not just Big Law

A Dallas office has been a long time coming for Manning & Kass, which is based in Los Angeles. Partner Erwin Nepomuceno relocated from the firm's Los Angeles office, and David Reeder, another partner, moved from San Diego when the firm opened the office earlier this month.

Nepomuceno, the leader of the firm's workers' compensation team and co-leader of its military and veterans law team, said he's had clients in Texas for 20 years and has been lobbying his partners to open an office in Dallas since about 2010. He said he has been licensed in Texas for six years in preparation for the office opening.

Nepomuceno said most of his clients are in Dallas or Fort Worth. In fact, he said his first-ever client was Fort Worth-based RadioShack, so he has traveled to north Texas for 20 years. “It's always friendly. I love the people,” he said.

Nepomuceno said the move to Texas is exciting because of new challenges. “I had the same feeling when I moved here … as I did my first week in boot camp in the Marine Corps,” he said.

Manning & Kass plans to add Texas lawyers to the office, according to Nepomuceno, but he said the culture is important so he and Reeder will ensure the new office launches with a consistent culture of teamwork.

“I can't wait to hire Texas attorneys because once we establish here, I think Houston is the next office we are thinking of. We can't wait to expand and bring in Texas lawyers,” he said.

Reeder, who does litigation, is also licensed in Texas.

In addition to Dallas, Manning & Kass has offices in Los Angeles, San Diego, Irving, San Francisco, New York and Phoenix.

Texas is part of a national growth strategy

Chicago-based Segal McCambridge's decision to open an office in Houston is part of the firm's plan to expand nationally. It established a new Houston office both to support the firm's Austin office and to serve clients in Houston and the Gulf Coast region.

“Expanding into Houston is consistent with our vision to continue growing the firm's national footprint in order to effectively protect our clients' interests throughout the country,” Mark Crane, Segal McCambridge's managing partner, said in a statement.

Crane said in an interview that the firm has a number of litigation clients with work in Houston and he sees opportunity for more work from clients in areas such as toxic-tort and products liability defense, and first-party insured and bad-claims litigation.

He expects Houston to be a great market for the firm. “One of the reasons we are so interested in the market is not only the market itself, but Mark Willingham,” Crane said.

Mark Willingham

Mark Willingham, a trial lawyer who joined Segal McCambridge as a partner in the new Houston office, said he is already interviewing lawyers for the Houston office, which opened earlier this month. Willingham was formerly the managing partner of Willingham, Fultz & Cougill in Houston.

He said he moved to Segal McCambridge because he has known several of the lawyers for many years and previously tried a few lawsuits with lawyers from the firm. He said his clients include General Electric and Baker Hughes.

Willingham said he looks forward to the challenge of building an office. The litigation firm's other offices are in Austin, Chicago, Detroit, Jersey City, New York, Philadelphia, and St. Louis.

Previously reported market moves in Texas this year include Kansas City, Missouri-based Spencer Fane, which opened a second Texas office in Plano, just 20 miles from the Dallas office it opened in 2016; Katten Muchin Rosenman, which opened an office in Dallas with a group of lawyers from Andrews Kurth Kenyon; and Orrick Herrington & Sutcliffe, which already had an office in Houston but added another in Austin after hiring a 20-lawyer public finance group from Andrews Kurth.

That's in addition to Shearman & Sterling, which launched its first Texas office in Austin and said it plans to open another in Houston soon, and White & Case, which in February opened an office in Houston.