Houston Houston, TX. (Photo: VanHart/Shutterstock.com)

2019 was another crazy year in the Texas legal market.

The frenetic pace of office openings and related lawyer hiring in the Lone Star State continued throughout 2019, as out-of-state firms hustled to launch Texas operations staffed with homegrown lateral hires.

2019 is the third year in a row of red-hot activity in the Texas legal market, with out-of-state firms lured by Texas' energy industry, its volume of corporate headquarters, and, perhaps, its distance from the Big Law-crowded coasts.

Competitive pressures are also a reality, as nearly half of Am Law 200 firms not headquartered in Texas have established offices in the state, a recent Texas Lawyer report showed.

Significant merger activity was the only area where 2019 didn't match up to 2018, when three large Texas firms, Andrews Kurth Kenyon, Strasburger & Price and Gardere Wynne Sewell, merged with large out-of-state firms.

Am Law 200 firms that moved into the Texas market in 2019 include Womble Bond Dickinson, which opened in Houston in January with lawyers from Hogan Lovells and Reed Smith, and  Lathrop Gage, which launched in Dallas in January with toxic tort and mass tort litigators from Hawkins Parnell Thackston & Young.

Some out-of-state Am Law 200 firms that already had a Texas presence added to that footprint in 2019.

Those firms include Phelps Dunbar, which opened in Fort Worth in September, initially with some transfers from the firm's Southlake office near DFW Airport. Bradley Arant Boult Cummings opened in Dallas, picking up a group from Sayles Werbner led by Dick Sayles. And Reed Smith also expanded to Dallas, opening an office there in May with laterals from Bracewell and Perkins Coie.

In August, Midwest firm Spencer Fane, which has offices in Dallas and Plano, moved into Houston as 19 lawyers from Zimmerman, Axelrad, Stern & Wise joined the firm.

LeClairRyan also opened a new office in Dallas in May. But its presence there was short-lived—by August, the Am Law 200 firm voted to dissolve.

While it did not establish a brick-and-mortar space, Georgia firm Taylor English Duma made an entrance to the Texas market in February by hiring former Kelley Drye & Warren partner Bryce Linsenmayer. He works as a remote attorney based in Houston, reporting into the firm's Atlanta headquarters.

Chicago-based intellectual property boutique McDonnell Boehnen Hulbert & Berghoff  launched an Austin office in October, hiring Jeffrey Toler and five other IP lawyers from his firm, Toler Law Group.

Don't Leave Texas Firms Behind

Homegrown Texas firms also expanded with new locations, acquisitions of smaller firms and spinoffs.

On Jan. 1, Houston litigation and business law firm BoyarMiller acquired Young, Graves & Burt, a probate and estate litigation firm in Houston, adding two lawyers and a new practice for estate planning and probate litigation.

The next month, Frost Brown Todd expanded in Dallas by adding five lawyers from Rose Walker, including trial lawyer Martin Rose. With that move Rose Walker, which Rose founded in 1999 with the late Harold Walker, made plans to wind down.

As Houston's Watt Thompson Frank & Carver closed its doors, Texas firms Munsch Hardt Kopf & Harr, Porter Hedges and Pierce & O'Neill all bolstered their Houston offices with Watt Thompson lawyers. The 18-year-old firm began winding down Jan. 31, and its four name partners all found new homes for their practices.

And while some small firms closed, another was born. In an interesting spinoff, more than half of Chicago-based defense firm Litchfield Cavo's Houston office left the firm in June to open a new litigation boutique, McKinney Taylor.

Waco was a prime location for new offices in 2019—a trend expected to continue in 2020—as the city has become a hotbed for intellectual property litigation. IP litigator Alan Albright took the federal bench in Waco in late 2018, causing an uptick in IP activity in his court.

Firms that launched new offices in Waco this year included Gray Reed & McGraw and Patterson + Sheridan.

Waco even led Mann Tindel Thompson, an East Texas firm known as MT2 Law Group, to open an office in Waco across the street from the federal courthouse in an unusual joint venture with Waco firm Haley & Olson.

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