Baker Botts Opens San Francisco Outpost

© 2015 The Texas Lawbook.

By Mark Curriden

(Oct. 30) – Baker Botts, the largest and oldest full service law firm in Texas, announced Thursday that it is opening an office in San Francisco in January and one of its prominent Dallas partners is moving there to lead the effort.

The firm, which has 725 lawyers in 15 offices worldwide, including 202 in Houston and 113 in Dallas, is sending commercial real estate partner Patricia Stanton to build its San Francisco practice.

Stanton, who has been the partner-in-charge of Baker Botts’ Dallas office since 2012 and has practiced law in Dallas for nearly three decades, says the opportunity to start and develop a new law office was too enticing.

“This is a last chapter for my career and the chance to do something this exciting, especially in such a beautiful and vibrant city as San Francisco, was too good to let pass by,” she says.

Stanton says she and the Baker Botts team scouted several office locations but decided on 101 California Street in the city’s financial district, which was appropriate because she and the firm represented the builder/developer of the property several years earlier.

The firm announced that litigation partner Timothy Durst is the new administrative partner in Dallas.

Baker Botts has 15 offices. This will be its second in California. The firm opened an outpost in Palo Alto in 2008 and has about 30 lawyers based in it. Some of the Palo Alto lawyers will also have offices in San Francisco.

Lawyers in the San Francisco office will cater to the firm’s clients involved in technology, real estate and life sciences.

“We’ve had so much success in California that this was the obvious next step,” says Baker Botts Managing Partner Andrew Baker. “Our Palo Alto office was the fastest office we had from start to profitability.”

Baker says Stanton “has a national real estate development practice and there are real business opportunities for her in San Francisco.

As part of its technology and litigation practices, the Baker Botts has several lawyers in California who specializes in patent infringement claims.

Baker pointed out that two technology communities have developed in the Bay area – one in Palo Alto and the other in San Francisco.

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