Seattle-based Perkins Coie has been making some noise in the Texas corporate legal market during the past year.
The firm announced Wednesday that it has named intellectual property trial lawyer Jose C. Villarreal as the new managing partner of Perkins Coie’s recently opened Austin office and that long-time corporate in-house counsel John Trevino has joined the Dallas office as senior counsel.
Trevino, who spent nine years in the U.S. Air Force as a computer systems operator for Air Force Intelligence Command, previously served as senior counsel at American Airlines, Sabre and Hewlett-Packard specializing in cybersecurity, data privacy and corporate compliance.
A 1997 graduate of the University of Texas School of Law, Trevino is a widely respected leader in the Texas Hispanic legal community. He joined Perkins Coie, a national law firm that specializes in serving technology clients, this week.
Villarreal is a trial lawyer who has spent two decades handling intellectual property disputes for clients across the U.S., as the new managing partner of the recently opened Perkins Coie office in the Austin.
With 21 offices and about 1,100 lawyers worldwide, Perkins Coie opened in Dallas in 2010. The firm currently has about 30 lawyers in Dallas and Austin and generated an estimated $23 million in revenue from its Texas operation last year.
Bill Malley, Perkins Coie’s firmwide managing partner, said Villarreal was a natural selection to lead the new office because of his “reputation in the Austin market and his enthusiasm for building a strong team of local attorneys.”
Villarreal joined Perkins Coie in February. Two lawyers from Vinson & Elkins, IP trial and appellate lawyer Craig Tyler and corporate lawyer Andy Smetana, joined the firm the same week.
“Perkins Coie’s strengths are a natural fit for the expanding technology and healthcare industries in Austin,” Villarreal said in a written statement. “Alongside my counterpart in the Dallas office, Dean Harvey, I see a strategic opportunity in Texas to provide excellent service to our clients in key industry sectors like software, computer electronics, retail, transportation, healthcare, and pharmaceuticals. I’m looking forward to serving our clients in Austin, Texas and beyond.”
Last July, Perkins Coie added three partners in its Dallas office, including former JCPenney senior counsel April Goff, who specializes in legal issues involving employee benefits, executive compensation and cybersecurity.
In an interview in early April, Harvey said the firm is committed to growing in Texas.
“There are definitely opportunities here for a firm like Perkins Coie to grow and we are actively in talks with potential lateral hires,” said Harvey. “I think many of the law firms that are so heavily invested in energy will struggle and have cutbacks and that is an opportunity for firms like ours.”