With Texas Legacy, New West Coast MP, What Does Baker Botts' Future Hold?
"Geography just matters less and less," Baker Botts' incoming managing partner, John Martin, said in an interview Thursday, referring to where a firm's leadership is based.
February 14, 2019 at 07:05 PM
5 minute read
Baker Botts, a 179-year-old Texas firm, has a legacy in oil-and-gas law, and a long string of managing partners based in the the Lone Star state. But its newest managing partner, John Martin, is based in Palo Alto, California, and does corporate work for technology clients.
Does the shift from a managing partner based in Houston to one in California have much significance for the firm or its image? Consultants say it might, but Martin suggests the change isn't revolutionary.
For years, the firm has focused on clients in the technology and energy sectors. And despite its “incredible heritage” in Texas, Martin said, Baker Botts has long been an international firm, with offices outside the United States and a deep reliance on cross-office staffing. Seven of the firm's 14 offices are located outside the United States.
“Geography just matters less and less,” Martin said in an interview Thursday, referring to where a firm's leadership is based. His election, he said, is “just another indication of how strong we are in multiple markets.”
Martin is set to take the reins April 1 as the firm's 15th managing partner, succeeding Houston corporate partner Andrew Baker, who has been managing partner since 2012 and must take mandatory retirement at the end of the year.
Martin said Baker Botts has long differentiated itself as a technology and energy firm and will continue to do so. The firm will continue to build strength in Texas, he said, even as it targets growth in London and on the East and West coasts.
Martin, in fact, is a California transplant. Now in his 35th year at the firm, he spent many of his years at Baker Botts in Texas. He and Baker were two of the lawyers who launched the firm's Dallas location in 1985.
In 2013, Martin moved to Palo Alto to become the partner-in-charge of the office, which had opened in 2008. He is also the firmwide partner-in-charge of recruiting and a member of the executive committee.
Even with Baker Botts' history of working without office boundaries, firm consultant Kent Zimmermann of Zeughauser Group suggests having a California-based managing partner may reflect an additional step in the firm's progress.
“That decision is consistent with the firm's growing strength in a number of industry sectors and geography, including tech. And it wasn't that long ago it was hard to imagine a Baker Botts managing partner being somewhere like Palo Alto or the East Coast,” Zimmermann said.
He said the change seems to be consistent with the firm's growth strategy outside of Texas.
“It's a big step. I'm not completely shocked,” he said.
And recent reports on law firm financial results in 2018 show that California remains a strong legal market. A survey from Citi Private Bank's Law Firm Group showed stronger revenue growth among California-based law firms than anywhere else in the country in 2018. The same survey said Texas-based firms, while strong in profit growth, lagged behind others in growing revenue.
Martin wasn't the only non-Texas lawyer who sought the managing partner job at the 750-lawyer firm. Robert Scheinfeld, an intellectual property partner in New York, also was a candidate, along with Houston partners Richard Husseini, chair of the tax department, and Danny David, a litigation partner. None of the other candidates responded to calls for comment Thursday.
Zimmermann said any emphasis on tech is good for Baker Botts, because it's a rapidly growing industry, and the tech sector is a big part of private equity deals and other M&A.
“If you look 20 years ahead, you see tech as being a growing industry, driving many other industries. Also, where you see oil and gas … it may still be important but not on the same growth trajectory,” he said.
Consultant Marcie Borgal Shunk, president and founder of The Tilt Institute, said many law firms are taking steps to enlarge their scope, speaking generally about the legal industry and not specifically about Baker Botts.
“Electing a managing partner or having a leadership team … in areas outside the core base is a signal to the market,” said Shunk, who advises firms on how to prepare for the future of the legal industry.
Houston firm consultant William C. Cobb said the fact that Martin is in California and has technology clients may not be as important to the firm's future or image as his ability to get buy-in from partners and successfully recruit in targeted markets—those include New York, Washington, D.C., London and the Bay Area in California, Martin said Thursday.
Cobb said competition for laterals is very intense in those markets, especially in London, but Baker Botts has a reputation for getting the “cream of the crop.”
Still, Cobb said, based on the fact that he was elected, Martin has garnered support from throughout the firm.
“He probably had to get up and tell people what his vision for the law firm was, and most people liked his vision over other people's vision,” Cobb said.
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