Dykema has continued its steady growth in Dallas with the addition of three commercial litigators.
Israel Silvas, Mike Toth and Alexis Farrell officially started at Dykema together on Oct. 7, but they arrived at the Detroit-based firm via different paths.
Silvas was formerly the co-chair of the bankruptcy/creditors’ rights section at Godwin Bowman. He joins Dykema as a member and focuses his practice on the oil and gas sector.
“Israel is somebody who has built a significant oil and gas litigation practice at a very young age,” Christopher Kratovil, managing member of Dykema’s Dallas office, says.
“He has managed to build a sustainable oil and gas book of business serving clients at three different levels – mineral rights disputes, more mature E&P companies in commercial disputes and backend creditors’ rights matters when things slow down in the oil patch.”
At Dykema, Silvas is reuniting with ex-Godwin attorneys Gavin Hill and Prescott Smith. All three worked for Don Godwin during the Deepwater Horizon trial.
Toth, who is a former clerk of Judge Edith Jones of the U.S. Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals like Kratovil, makes the move to Dykema after spending the majority of his legal career in public service.
The former special counsel to the Texas Attorney General’s Office was appointed by Governor Greg Abbott to the Third Court of Appeals in Austin in September 2018. Toth was then defeated in the November mid-terms.
Farrell signs on with Dykema as an associate after being recruited by the firm in law school and doing her summer clerkship there. She is the sixth Notre Dame Law School graduate in the firm’s Dallas office and first Native American attorney.
The new additions increase Dykema’s Dallas headcount to 48 lawyers.
“So many firms have opened a Dallas office in the last five years,” says Kratovil, who was the 11th attorney in the office when he joined in 2010. “I’m proud that Dykema was a little ahead of the curve in 2008 and has gotten a lot of the growing pains out of the way.”
The firm has also brought on dental executive Charleen Maranto as practice group manager for its Dental Service Organizations Industry Group. Maranto, who is not a lawyer, was previously the chief operating officer at multi-office dental service organization Electus Health.
“Charleen frees our lawyers up to be lawyers and will handle the business side of what has become one of the most significant practices at Dykema nationwide,” Kratovil says.