Austin, Texas. Photo: Roschetzky Photography/Shutterstock.com

Austin bucked the statewide trend by experiencing an increase in litigation filings last year. But it may take more than that for law firms to open up shop in Texas' smallest major metro or hire on litigators.

Civil case filings increased significantly in Travis County in 2019—up 13% over 2018. While the Austin market has seen a few targeted group moves in recent weeks, leaders of other firms say they don't see a pressing need to launch in Austin simply because case filings grew at a faster clip in Austin than in other large Texas metro areas.

The bottom line, they say, is that firms can handle litigation in Austin from other Texas offices. Texas is a big state, but it takes less than three hours to drive from Houston to Austin.

Mark Lanier, founder of trial firm Lanier Law Firm, which has offices in Houston, New York, Oklahoma City and Los Angeles, said the firm has a docket in Austin, but services those cases from Houston. Lanier notes that one lawyer at the firm does live in Austin, but is officially assigned to the Houston office.

"We don't worry about an office there," Lanier said about Austin.

The same is true at Susman Godfrey, which has offices in Houston, New York, Seattle and Los Angeles. Neal Manne, a managing partner of the litigation boutique, said the firm doesn't view geographic expansion as important to the firm's success or its growth. What works is  increasing revenues and profits by winning lawsuits, he said.

"We don't need to grow by taking on more overhead and paying more lease expenses in more cities," Manne said, adding that the firm has work in Austin but handles it from other offices.

Manne said clients or prospective clients ask the firm frequently to consider opening offices in new cities. That's unlikely, he said.

"If we needed to open an office everywhere we handle big cases, then we'd have to open 100 offices, and that's 96 more offices than we want," he said.

A recent Texas Lawyer report on Texas case filings found that Austin posted larger gains in new cases added in 2019 than in Houston, San Antonio or Dallas-Fort Worth. Total new cases increased by 6% in Travis County, while declining in other large metropolitan areas, based on data from the Texas Office of Court Administration. Civil case filings increased by 13% in Austin, compared with the prior year, while declining by 9% in Harris County, which includes Houston.

Baker Botts has offices in Austin, Houston and Dallas, but looks at its litigation practice on a statewide basis, not by individual office, managing partner John Martin said. The Am Law 100 firm wants to add to its litigation bench strength in Texas, but is not specifically eyeing Austin because of an uptick in civil filings in 2019.

"Those litigation filing stats, I'm sure they ebb and flow," Martin said.

Still, the city has seen some Big Law movement recently.

Perkins Coie just opened an office in Austin, with three lateral partner hires, including two who do intellectual property litigation. Dean Harvey, managing partner of Perkins Coie's Dallas office, said the firm will consider hiring more litigators in Austin as the office grows, based on client needs.

"Our focus is to serve our tech clients, so we will always be looking at opportunities," Harvey said.

And, while it was more focused on the health care industry than the litigation practice, Texas-based Am Law 200 firm Winstead recently brought on four lawyers from Clark Hill Strasburger in Austin, who do compliance, regulatory and transactional work.

Recruiter Lee Allbritton, a principal in Austin for Amicus, said he hasn't seen any trend of firms opening offices in Austin because of litigation work, but he does see opportunity for firms to hire litigation partners in Austin.

"There are, generally speaking, more litigation folks available and interested in making a move at a wider spectrum of rate structures, so it makes it a little bit easier to expand through litigation hires," Allbritton said.

He said about half of the Am Law 200 lateral partner hires in Austin in 2019 were litigation partners. Among the litigators who made moves in Austin last year were a five-lawyer group that joined Butler Snow, including one partner from Beck Redden and one from Bowman and Bowman; two former Munsch Hardt Kopf & Harr partners who moved to Duane Morris; and two IP litigators who rejoined Bracewell, coming from Pillsbury Winthrop Shaw Pittman.

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