© 2018 The Texas Lawbook.
By Natalie Posgate
(Mar. 1) – Lynn Pinker Cox & Hurst is celebrating 25 years on Friday. But unlike the woes of uncertainty many twenty-somethings feel when contemplating what the hell they are doing with the rest of their lives, firm founder Mike Lynn has never felt better about his litigation boutique’s future.
Lynn started the firm now known as Lynn Pinker Cox & Hurst in 1993, when he was already seemingly at the peak of his career. He had been a partner in the litigation section of the Dallas-based powerhouse, Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld, for 10 years. He called Jack Hauer his personal mentor and dear friend.
The firm was thriving, but Lynn could feel its focus straying away from the courtroom and toward expansion across the globe.
“I saw [the firm] growing in Moscow and Dubai and thought there was less of an emphasis on Texas and trying cases,” he says.
Inspired by what Steve Susman had achieved, Lynn decided to go out on his own.
“I sent my wife (U.S. District Judge Barbara Lynn) ultimately an estoppel letter that said, ‘Dear Barb, I’m going to be leaving in 10 days unless you object.’ She supported me wholeheartedly,” Lynn said.
Because hanging out one’s own shingle was (and still is) such a risk, Lynn said he never had a vision of the firm lasting 25 years. And because he wasn’t focused on how many lawyers he wanted the firm to grow to, he was free to focus on what he thinks truly matters: trying good cases.
“I thought if we just lasted five years it would be a great accomplishment,” Lynn said. “The number of lawyers was less important to me than what we were going to do, what kinds of cases we’d take.”
A quarter of a century later, Lynn Pinker has 35 lawyers who represent some of the most elite clients in bet-the-company trials. There are always three or four different teams going to trial at the same time with lawyers still leftover to maintain firm business. The firm is listed as one of the top litigation boutiques in Texas. Plus, Lynn even calls a Saudi prince a client.
“I think the talent level here in terms of ability to try cases is second to none,” he said. “We have the densest concentrated number of really good trial lawyers compared to any major commercial firm in Texas.”
Lynn credits the firm’s success to its ability to attract and retain high quality trial lawyers who not only find joy in their work, but also in being around each other.
“We have a really tight bond around here,” Lynn said. “We have a saying here: ‘It’s the people, stupid,’ which we paraphrase from Clinton’s ‘It’s the economy, stupid.’ It’s the people who make the arguments, and the people who have an ability to see a story, or the instincts for how to use a document in cross-examination. It’s not the institution.”
Asked how the wave of elite global and national firms entering the Texas market affects his firm, Lynn said the new arrivals actually bring good news to his team, since as firms grow, so do client conflicts.
Those conflicts equate to more referrals to Lynn Pinker, but because Lynn says his firm will never steal clients, he believes Lynn Pinker will increasingly receive top-notch trial work over the coming years. He says there have been some instances in which a client that was referred to his firm will call a couple years later with more work, but Lynn Pinker lawyers will immediately call the firm that originally referred, suggesting they handle it.
“I think we provide a ready place for all those lawyers struggling to figure out where to place their business; they don’t want to lose clients they’ve worked so hard to cultivate,” Lynn said. “It’s one of those rare, and almost unheard of, intersections where integrity and marketing meet. As long as I’m alive and working here, we will not steal clients.”
Plus, with all the M&A deals that the large firms are increasingly spending more of their time on, Lynn says the market is in need of a firm like his to call companies out when they lie, cheat and steal.
“In a real sense, I think we actually help make the commercial world work, or at least a lot better than it would otherwise,” he said. The “rights and obligations that people enter into are not self-enforcing. There has to be a mechanism where those complex deals are enforced.
“The only way to do that is to take them to a jury and explain them. At the end of the day, that’s what we do.”
© 2018 The Texas Lawbook. Content of The Texas Lawbook is controlled and protected by specific licensing agreements with our subscribers and under federal copyright laws. Any distribution of this content without the consent of The Texas Lawbook is prohibited.
If you see any inaccuracy in any article in The Texas Lawbook, please contact us. Our goal is content that is 100% true and accurate. Thank you.