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Dallas employment and trial firm Clouse Dunn split into two new firms on Monday, with Rogge Dunn forming Rogge Dunn Group and Keith Clouse and Alyson Brown launching Clouse Brown.

Dunn said the separation makes sense because his practice has evolved over the years, adding business litigation to his employment practice, while his partner of 16 years, Clouse, continues to focus on employment work.

Rogge Dunn

“Now is the right time to move and while we've been very successful, it makes sense at this time,” Dunn said.

The decision to split was driven in part by the upcoming expiration of the firm's lease, said Clouse, who noted that his new firm is staying at its current location, using about half the space it had previously.

Dunn and Clouse each said the split is amicable.

“It's all good. We are parting as friends,” Clouse said. “We had a good run together.”

Dunn said he and Clouse had been planning the split for about the past four months. “I highly recommend for partners everywhere if they are going to split, they make it amicable,” he said.

Keith Clouse

The lawyers who are practicing at Rogge Dunn Group are partners Dunn, Gregory Clift, Bryan Collins, Josh Iacuone and Brian Shaw, as well as attorneys David Gross and John Lynch.

At Clouse Brown, attorneys Emily Stout, Camille Avant, Bruce Rothstein and Jesse Clouse are joining name partners Keith Clouse and Brown.

Rogge said the split was driven in part by his desire to move into newer, more efficient and more costly office space and to invest in new technology, such as document management and billing systems. He said that is necessary for his growing business litigation practice because it is so document-intensive.

However, Keith Clouse, whose practice focuses on employment work for senior executives, said the cost of new technology was not an issue. “It was whether we want to invest a lot of money into this space, or not,” he said.

Alyson Brown

Clouse said his daughter, Jesse Clouse, recently joined the firm, and his goal is to continue to build an employment law firm where she can “grab the reins” once he decides to do something else.

Keith Clouse declined to identify the firm's clients. Dunn said his firm's clients include CBRE, Beal Bank, Outback Steakhouse and Cigna Health Insurance.

Despite the level of activity in the Texas legal market, with out-of-state firms opening Texas offices and many lawyers making lateral moves, both Clouse and Dunn said they enjoy the small practice too much to consider a move to a big one.

“Having done our own thing as long as we have, that's not desirable,” Clouse said.

“I like being able to have control over how I handle cases, not have conflicts which are inherent in a big firm,” Dunn said.