Michael Gaston-Bell, left, and Jarrod Martin, right.

Adding practice areas that are suddenly booming because of COVID-19, Katten Muchin Rosenman launched a labor and employment practice in its Dallas office and Houston's Chamberlain, Hrdlicka, White, Williams & Aughtry tacked on a new bankruptcy practice.

Despite market uncertainty due to the coronavirus, the firms are taking advantage of a boon in certain practices by expanding with Texas hires in areas that have gotten busier as clients deal with the uncertain business and economic environment. In addition to labor and employment and bankruptcy, other surging practices including insurance coverage, health care and privacy and data security.

At Katten, Michael Gaston-Bell, who does labor and employment and commercial litigation,  joined as special counsel in the litigation practice, coming from Haynes and Boone. To launch its bankruptcy practice, Chamberlain Hrdlicka added Jarrod Martin as a shareholder in Houston. He formerly led the bankruptcy practice at Houston's McDowell Hetherington.

Mark Solomon, managing partner of Katten's Dallas office, said the firm had been looking to add labor and employment expertise in Dallas for a while—unrelated to COVID-19—but the recent high demand shows that the timing to hire Gaston-Bell was opportune.

He said that since the pandemic led to stay-home orders to slow the spread of the coronavirus, the Dallas office has seen an increase in labor and employment lawsuits and a huge demand from clients needing counseling on policies.

Gaston-Bell "checked every single box" the firm was looking for when adding a labor and employment lawyer, Solomon said. The lateral hire joined in early April, but Katten just announced it Wednesday.

Gaston-Bell said he sees opportunity to grow his practice at Katten, because the Dallas office has a number of lawyers doing corporate and mergers and acquisitions work, and his practice meshes well with that practice.

He said he's been busy since his move. In the early weeks of the pandemic, Gaston-Bell said, he handled a wave of work for clients dealing with layoffs and furloughs. Now, the work has shifted to advising clients on reopening businesses and offices.

Chamberlain Hrdlicka managing partner Larry Campagna said his firm has not had a bankruptcy practice in Houston for several years, but the drop in oil prices and the pandemic led the firm to decide to add the practice.

The search quickly focused on Martin, Campagna said, after a series of people, including a bankruptcy practitioner, a friend of a shareholder and a shareholder, suggested the firm talk to Martin.

"It became a very focused search, very quickly," Campagna said.

Martin said the bankruptcy and restructuring practice is "absolutely exploding," and he needed to move from a litigation boutique to a full-service firm to better serve clients. He talked to more than a half-dozen firms ranging from Texas firms to Am Law 100 firms, but the offer from Chamberlain Hrdlicka was very competitive and the firm provides him with the range of practices and flexibility he needs to grow his practice.

Among clients, Martin said he represents the Chapter 7 trustee in the Anchor Drilling Services bankruptcy, and the Chapter 11 trustee for Watson Valve Services, one of the companies that filed for protection from creditors following an explosion at a related plant in Houston in January.

Campagna said the firm plans to hire more bankruptcy lawyers to work with Martin in Houston.

"We just expect this will be a very busy area of the law for quite some time to come, particularly in Houston with the double-whammy of the pandemic and the [low] oil prices," Campagna said.

McDowell Hetherington partner David McDowell declined to comment on Martin's departure. When asked for a comment on Gaston-Bell's departure, Haynes and Boone managing partner Tim Powers wrote, "We appreciate Michael's service to the firm and to our clients and wish him well at his new firm."

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