LeClairRyan, after losing dozens of lawyers this year in various locations, opened an office in Dallas on Wednesday, bolstering its small presence in Houston.

The firm hired former Constangy, Brooks, Smith & Prophete partner William Hammel as an employment litigation partner for the new Dallas office. Other LeClairRyan lawyers who have been working remotely out of the Dallas area will now work in the new north Texas office—aviation partner Christa Hinckley, business litigation counsel Helen Mosothoane and patent prosecution associate Todd Martin.

Thomas Regan, a partner in Newark, New Jersey, who leads the litigation department, said LeClairRyan has eyed a Dallas office for a number of years.

“It's such a great legal market for aviation, labor and employment, IP, for so many facets of work,” Regan said.

He said the Dallas outpost will focus on those areas, and work closely with the Houston office. That office was established in 2014, when LeClairRyan merged with 18-lawyer Hays McConn Rice & Pickering.

Jason Medley, office leader in Houston, could not immediately be reached for comment. According to the firm's website, two associates, two counsel and one senior counsel work in Houston in addition to Medley. LeClairRyan's website lists eight lawyers in Dallas, but four of them, including Medley, are also in the Houston listing.

Regan said the firm hopes to add more lawyers in Dallas to build a “critical mass.”

That's counter to what's happening nationally. LeClairRyan has lost 58 partners since Jan. 1, according to ALM's Legal Compass.

The new office in Dallas is not an effort to counter losses elsewhere, Regan said. “There's not really anything deeper or broader about it. People leave for various reasons,” he said.

However, Regan said, Dallas is linked to the firm's “Law Firm 2.0″ model, a strategy that calls for building in locations “where our clients want [us] to be.” He declined to identify the clients with work in Dallas, but said many national clients have legal work in north Texas.

LeClairRyan's gross revenue declined 13.9% in 2018, as attorney head count slipped by nearly 10% and the equity partnership shrank by more than 27%. The firm's declining size and financial performance has come in the midst of a restructuring—the Law Firm 2.0 model Regan referenced—following a joint venture it entered in 2018 with alternative legal services provider UnitedLex.

Departures this year include an 18-lawyer group in Boston that left in January to join Atlanta-based Freeman Mathis & Gary.

Also in January, a group of IP lawyers in Rochester, New York, departed for Pepper Hamilton, which later added more former LeClairRyan lawyers to bring the total Rochester departures to two dozen. Regan confirmed that LeClairRyan has closed its Rochester office.

The firm also lost lawyers this year in Virginia to Baltimore-based Whiteford Taylor Preston and Am Law 200 firm Williams Mullen, and in New York to Lewis Brisbois Bisgaard & Smith.

J. Hunter Johnson, head of Constangy Brooks' Dallas office, said in a statement that the firm appreciates Hammel's contributions to the firm and wishes him well.

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