© 2015 The Texas Lawbook.
By Brooks Igo
(Sept. 4) – Houston shareholders Jim Reed and Jim McGraw of Gray Reed & McGraw celebrated a milestone “beyond their wildest dreams” this past month. Their law firm turned 30 years old on Aug. 7.
In 1985, the two litigators and former colleague Don Looper left Reynolds Allen & Cook to start their own law firm in one of the worst recessions in Texas’ history.
Three decades later, the law firm has more than 120 lawyers with offices in Houston and Dallas and is among the 20 largest law firms in Texas.
Reed says there have been significant changes in the both the landscape of business law firms in the state and the practice of law since they started their firm.
“When we started, there were five or so ‘large firms,’” he said. “Over time these big firms grew much larger due, in large part, to mergers and acquisitions.
I could have never imagined Fulbright & Jaworski merging with another large firm to the extent that Jaworski’s name would no longer be in the firm name.”
Medium-sized firms like theirs started quickly disappearing, McGraw added. He says they have been approached numerous times over the years to merge, but they wanted to control their own destiny.
The emergence of mediation and the growing roles of non-lawyers, such as mock trial experts and jury consultants, have transformed litigation, McGraw says.
“The result has been that a trial lawyer seldom goes to trial, at least compared with 30 years ago,” he said. “To me, that’s bad, at least if you really like trials. After 30 years, my favorite memories were in court in trial.”
J. Cary Gray, who became a named partner at the beginning of 2014 and is the president and managing director of the firm, said reaching the 30th anniversary is a by-product of the firm’s emphasis on being client-focused.
“The story of this firm is its unwavering insistence that every member of the firm commit to our core values of integrity, respect and fairness to each other and to our clients,” he said. “Our firm and all firms face the daunting task of revamping our business models in ways that will allow us to provide genuine value to clients in a world where technology is increasingly available to play roles historically played by lawyers.”
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