A year into opening her own law firm, Mo Lovett is now opening another office in North Texas.
While she hadn’t expected the firm to grow as quickly as it has, she is excited about the momentum.
The appointment-only office is in Westlake in the Dallas-Fort Worth area.
“My major clients right now are all located in the Metroplex — it makes perfect sense,” Lovett said, taking a break from packing her Houston home.
She plans on keeping her Houston office in the River Oaks Bank Building. David Nixon is an engineer turned associate at the firm, and Lovett plans to add more to the staff.
She and her husband, John Warren, are moving, but they are staying connected with the community. The couple is involved with the Houston Grand Opera. Lovett has a band, Joint Custody, which will be competing in Law Rocks Houston next month.
Lovett recently sat down with The Texas Lawbook to discuss her career and more.
The following conversation has been edited for length and clarity.
Texas Lawbook: You launched the firm about a year ago. What are some of the things you’ve learned about having an independent practice?
Lovett: It’s been a dramatically great year. I was in Big Law for 30 years and then went to King & Spalding after I left Greenberg Traurig, where I was the ranking woman at Greenberg Traurig for 18 years. I went to King & Spalding, loved it, loved the experience — did not love the conflicts; was just conflicted out of so many things. That was one of the big drivers in me starting my own firm and wanting to be my own boss. When I started, it was just like, “Okay, this might last two months, and then I’ll retire.” I did not have this confidence about how it was going to go. I just didn’t. What we’ve been able to accomplish in that time has been just dramatic. It’s really been a landmark for us, but the expansion is something I’m just super excited about.
Texas Lawbook: What kind of cases is the firm taking on right now?
Lovett: They’re all complex litigation. So, for example, right now, I have a case involving a power plant. That’s a $300 million case. I’ve taken on a major case involving defamation and a breach of contract for a woman who’s an (Texas A&M) professor but also a businesswoman — and it’s bet-the-company for several of her entities — against an ex-boyfriend who’s also an ex-business partner. [These are] bet-the-company cases where everything’s at stake for these folks.
Texas Lawbook: What are some of your goals for the firm?
Lovett: Well, our goals are to expand throughout Texas, but my primary place of business is always going to be Houston. That’s where I built my reputation. That’s where I have practiced for 32 years. Houston will always be the mothership, but we are definitely looking at expanding to the Metroplex and eventually Austin.
Texas Lawbook: You’re the first lawyer in your family. Why did you decide to follow a career in law?
Lovett: It was always just my little girl dream. Everybody says I saw To Kill a Mockingbird, and I did, but it was more than that. My dad, whom I lost when I was 17, was such a big proponent for me, and just said, “You can do anything you want to do.” He’s a huge part of why I became a lawyer, because he saw in me that drive. And then my mother, who is 87 years old and still working at the daycare center she started to hedge against his work as an oil field geologist. She gets up and goes to work every day in Whitehouse, Texas. That’s where I grew up — very small town. But my parents just instilled in me that I could do anything I wanted, and this has been my dream since childhood. I didn’t go to big, fancy schools. I went to Stephen F. Austin State University and South Texas College of Law, which is the best trial school on the planet, and I think it’s just served me well.
Texas Lawbook: Did you inspire others in your family to go to law school?
Lovett: My son will. He’s a junior at NYU right now, and he’s finally told me that he really wants to go to law school, so that’s awesome. And he’s been working with me at the company. Just had his first day in court this last week as an intern legal assistant. But he’s finishing a very rigorous set of studies up there, and then he will be going on to law school. So I’m super excited about that.
Texas Lawbook: What is a memorable case or moment you’ve had in your career?
Lovett: I think the one that most people would know about is the Lady Antebellum name case. I was the lawyer who sued to protect Lady Antebellum’s ability to call themselves Lady A, and there was a trademark scuffle over that. Back in the middle of right after George Floyd’s death, Rolling Stone magazine decided to stir something up with them and try to cancel them effectively, and we stopped that from happening. That’s one of my proudest moments as a lawyer — one of my favorite stories.
Texas Lawbook: You’ve been honored for your work as a mentor. Can you tell me a bit why that is something you’re passionate about?
Lovett: I’m passionate about it because I had such great mentors. My mentors were men named Grant Cook and Jim Leahy. There’s a great lawyer in Dallas named Charla Aldous who was a mentor of mine, and I want to be a great mentor because I had such great mentors. And they really made my career. They shaped my career. They gave me a sense of being able to do anything. I’ve never been a second-chair trial lawyer. I always had my own cases. I was always first chair, but they were great mentors to have.
Texas Lawbook: You’ve worked to get more women in the courtroom. Where do you see that heading in the future for the legal profession?
Lovett: It’s just a fact that I’ve been doing this for 32 years, and I’ve only had two female opponents in the whole time — over 50 cases, two first-chair female opponents. That is someplace where the profession continues to lag behind, especially in commercial litigation and IP litigation. I think we’re going to see more women moving to the ranks, but it’s still going to be only 25 percent, and we’ve got to do something about that for women and lawyers of color.
Texas Lawbook: What are your thoughts on the growing concern over nuclear verdicts?
Lovett: I do think there’s a growing concern about that. I think the more polarized we become as a country politically, the more this just translates, and I’ve seen this over these 32 years. You do end up with a polarized jury room, and you get people who are pro-corporate or anti-corporate. And so you start seeing these nuclear verdicts, which are meant to “send a message,” but really the jurors are sending a message outside the courtroom, and a lot of plaintiffs’ lawyers argue that way, and I understand. I’ve got great friends on the plaintiffs’ bar, and of course I wouldn’t be around if there weren’t plaintiff’s lawyers, but when they start getting up and saying, “send a message with your verdict for big punitive damages,” (it is) a verdict that just hurts everybody. That’s just going to drive costs up, and that’s going to cause problems down the line. So you normally see me representing big companies on the plaintiff and defense side, but you don’t see me going for nuclear verdicts. I’m going to get the benefit of a contract, or, in the case of my defamation suit that I just filed, I’m going to save somebody’s reputation.
Texas Lawbook: You’re a trustee for the Houston Grand Opera. Do you sing?
Lovett: I do sing myself. And actually, I have a firm band. We’re doing Law Locks. So Mo Lovett Law will be participating in Law Rocks, the band competition here in March, and it’s kind of like Battle of the Bands for law firms. So yes, I’ve always been a passionate singer. I’m a passionate opera buff. My cousin is the great Maria Callas, who a lot of people knew as being the greatest opera singer who ever lived. And so yes, my husband and I have known each other since law school. We were inconveniently married to other people at the time, but we’ve known each other since then, and we just became major underwriters at an even higher level for HGO this year. Yeah, it’s definitely a passion of ours. And even though I’m moving, I’m keeping my Houston roots. Houston Grand Opera, Houston Texans, Houston Astros, Houston Rockets — definitely, definitely not giving up our hometown teams. We may become Dallas Stars fans because Dallas actually has a hockey team, and we don’t.
If you or someone you know would like to be profiled in a future edition of Asked & Answered, please let us know at tlblitigation@texaslawbook.net. Check out our other Asked & Answered interviews below:
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