Nearly two years of closed courthouses across Texas due to the Covid-19 pandemic dramatically reduced the number of civil jury trials to a trickle.
In 2022, the commercial litigation floodgates opened. Many litigation firms experienced record numbers of trials, depositions and courtroom battles. Hundreds of high-dollar patent infringement disputes are being fought in the federal courts of the Western and Eastern districts of Texas. Massive litigation involving Winter Storm Uri and the Astroworld tragedy are employing scores and scores of lawyers.
The result, according to experts, is that Houston and Dallas litigation boutiques large and small are projecting record revenues, profits and associate bonuses for 2022. One small litigation firm in Dallas, Reese Marketos, is paying its associates year-end bonuses that exceed $200,000.
If 2021 was the year of the corporate M&A lawyer in Texas, this year has been equally good for attorneys who specialize in complex commercial litigation.
“We had more cases set for trial and more cases went to trial than in the entire history of the firm,” Susman Godfrey co-managing partner Vineet Bhatia told The Texas Lawbook in an interview Tuesday. “We have been tremendously busy and we don’t see a slow down for 2023.”
Houston-based Susman, which represents Live Nation in the Astroworld litigation and two major clients in the Winter Storm Uri litigation, announced Tuesday that it is giving its associates year-end bonuses ranging from $90,000 to $170,000. The firm also announced that it promoted seven of its associates to partner starting Jan. 1.
Crosstown Houston rival Ahmad, Zavitsanos & Mensing is having a similarly busy year.
“We are blowing and going – 14 trials this year including the one I’m doing right now,” said AZA managing partner John Zavitsanos, who is representing a plaintiff this week in a trade secrets trial in Fort Bend County.
“We lost 10 [intellectual property] lawyers this year and our revenues will still beat last year and we are definitely having a record year for profits,” Zavitsanos said.
AZA promoted five associates to partner, which is one of its largest new partner classes in the firm’s history.
Dallas litigation firms also report that 2022 has been a record year.
“We had our busiest year ever and I’ve been to trial and in court on more matters and doing more work than any year since 2007,” said Jeff Tillotson, managing partner at Tillotson Johnson & Patton in Dallas.
“Our associates have never been busier. I downloaded Cravath’s bonus schedule and we decided to beat it and pay more,” Tillotson said, though declining to provide specific amounts.
Joel Reese, managing partner at Reese Marketos, said 2022 has been the best year financially since the firm was founded in 2011, which led to the record $200,000-plus bonuses awarded to associates.
“Our qui tam and false claims practice has been driving our plaintiff-side recoveries,” Reese said. “We tried a government procurement fraud case … in September 2021 in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Alabama and received a $36.2 million verdict before trebling and $113 million after trebling and fees. We settled and received payment on [that] case this year. We also settled a mortgage fraud case that was scheduled to go to trial in October in the US District Court for the Northern District of California.
The procurement fraud case was USA ex rel. Marsteller v. MD Helicopters and the mortgage fraud case was USA ex rel. Thrower v. Academy Mortgage Corporation.
“Because we had such a great year, we are flying all of the lawyers to Las Vegas for a firm retreat this weekend,” Reese said.
I guess Shreveport was booked.