© 2013 The Texas Lawbook.
By Mark Curriden, JD
Senior Writer for The Texas Lawbook
(September 17) – Eight prominent partners – seven of them women – at Weil, Gotshal & Manges in Dallas are taking their law practices four blocks across Woodall Rodgers Freeway to Sidley Austin.
At least two more Weil partners are also weighing offers from Sidley, according to lawyers familiar with the situation.
Sidley chairman Carter Phillips, in an interview Tuesday with The Texas Lawbook, says the firm’s Dallas office could add more than a dozen more lawyers during the next few months. And he says Sidley’s Houston office, which opened in 2012 and now has 32 lawyers, will continue its expansion.
“We can be substantially larger in Dallas and Houston, as the Texas business market is quite healthy,” Phillips says.
The seven women partners – five of them in complex commercial litigation and two in banking and finance – represent nearly 30 percent of the 24 women equity partners at Weil firm-wide, according to lawyers at Weil. The departures leave Weil, a firm that is highly respected for its diversity efforts, with no women equity partners in Dallas. However, Weil has additional women in other offices in non-equity partnerships and in fixed share equity partnerships.
Sidley officially announced the hiring of the eight partners in a press release issued Tuesday morning, but lawyers say that it may be weeks before the lawyers are able to join their new firm because Weil’s leadership in New York has indicated that they may hold the eight partners to the 60-day notice requirement in the firm’s partnership agreement.
Yvette Ostolaza, who served as co-head of Weil’s complex commercial litigation section, leads the group to Sidley, where she will be the managing partner of the firm’s Dallas operations. Angela Fontana, who has been co-chair of Weil’s banking and finance section, will serve as global coordinator for Sidley’s private equity practice.
The other Weil lawyers joining Sidley include litigation partners Penny Reid, Angela Zambrano, Yolanda Garcia, Michelle Hartmann and Vance Beagles, and corporate partner Kelly Dybala.
The litigation partners have represented American Airlines, Halliburton, The Williams Companies, the Texas Rangers baseball team and a few private equity firms. The banking partners’ clients include Berkshire Partners, General Electric and Brazos Investment Partners.
The eight lawyers have been labeled “The Weil Seven Plus One” because they are personally and professionally close and loyal to each other, for their decision to stick together as a group and, of course, because they are seven women and one man.
The group became concerned about the firm’s future commitment to litigation in Texas after Weil announced in June that it was dramatically cutting its litigation practice in Houston. Lawyers familiar with the situation say that the Dallas litigation partners became upset when Weil’s leadership in New York didn’t adequately address their concerns about the firm’s future plans for Texas.
“These are lawyers who watched each other become partners and raise children and they are very committed to each other,” says a lawyer with direct knowledge of the situation. “These lawyers truly believed they would retire at Weil.”
Lawyers who have spoken with the “Weil Seven Plus One” say the partners “go out of their way” to praise their firm’s Texas leadership, including Weil Dallas managing partner Glenn West and Houston managing partner John Strasburger.
About the same time as the Houston cuts were announced, headhunters began contacting the Weil litigation partners in Dallas. A bidding war ensued. Two firms – Sidley and Paul Hastings – made offers.
The eight Weil partners were impressed by Sidley’s growth strategy in Texas and its lack of concentrated power in New York, according to a lawyer close to lateral move.
Phillips, Sidley’s chairman who offices in Washington, D.C., says “The Weil Seven Plus One” came along at the perfect time for his firm.
“We were taking a serious look at whether to keep Dallas as an exclusive IP practice shop and we decided that was a mistake,” says Phillips. “Then these folks came along. Their reputations are off the charts.”
Phillips says Sidley negotiated with the eight partners for three weeks.
“The biggest thing we had to do is to persuade them that we are serious about Dallas and Texas,” he says. “Their biggest concern was Weil’s commitment to Texas.”
The eight departing Weil lawyers declined to comment and leaders with Weil did not respond to inquiries. Here is a link to Sidley’s official press release: http://www.sidley.com/Sidley-Austin-LLP-Adds-Team-of-Litigation-and-Private-Equity-Lawyers-09-17-2013/.
Sidley currently has 26 lawyers who focus exclusively on intellectual property law in its Dallas office, which opened in 1996. With the addition of the eight new partners and the likely hiring of associates to support the partners, lawyers say they expect Sidley’s Dallas office could grow to 40 lawyers by the end of the year. Sidley’s Houston office, which opened in 2012, has 32 lawyers.
Weil will have 75 lawyers in Dallas after the eight departures.
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