Corporate law firms in Texas had another blockbuster year in 2024. Record revenues. Record profits. The top business law firms operating in Texas in 2024 worked more hours for more corporate clients and charged those clients record-high rates — some now topping $2,600 an hour for premium services. The demand for high-dollar elite legal expertise and services in Texas came from companies and private equity firms involved in dealmaking for infrastructure and energy transition projects and businesses engaged in bet-the-company disputes, often battling other businesses or government agencies in court. The Texas Lawbook 50, which tracks the revenue generated by lawyers and law firms operating in Texas, found that 34 of the 50 largest corporate firms achieved record-high revenues in 2024, and an even higher percentage achieved record profits. Eight law firms grew revenue by 25 percent or more.
Kirkland is Texas’ First Billion-Dollar Law Firm
Kirkland & Ellis has become the baseball Hall of Famer Bob Gibson of corporate law firms — fiercely competitive and dominant, despised and envied by opponents and outrageously successful. Entering its second decade with offices in Texas, Kirkland achieved a new high in 2024 that even its Texas leader, Andy Calder, never conceived they could accomplish.
Lawbook 50: Eight Firms — All Texas, All the Time, All Profitable
Kelly Hart, Porter Hedges, Jackson Walker and five other law firms tracked by the Texas Lawbook 50 are 100 percent Texas operations with no offices and no lawyers outside the state. All eight law firms hit record highs last year in revenues and profits, and they are growing revenue and headcount at the same pace as the mega corporate firms that surround them. This gang of eight generated $1.046 billion in revenue in 2024 — up nine percent from the prior year, according to Lawbook 50 research. “We had another record-breaking year in 2024 — beyond what we reasonably expected,” Porter Hedges co-managing partner Joyce Soliman told The Lawbook.
Condon Tobin Hires Team from Libby Sparks
Condon Tobin Sladek Sparks Nerenberg has hired three new attorneys, the firm announced Wednesday in a news release. The additions — members Dustin Sparks and Jeff Libby, plus associate Rebecca Donachie — will strengthen the Dallas firm’s capabilities in corporate transactional work, M&A and commercial real estate.
With Ivett Hughes at the Helm in Houston, ‘Baker Hughes is a Corporate Leader in Pro Bono Service’
In the first quarter of 2024, Baker Hughes launched a global legal and compliance diversity, inclusion and belonging counsel with the mission of infusing those values into the legal department through internal and external engagement. Led by Ivett Hughes in Houston, a regional team of lawyers and staff partnered with Houston Volunteer Lawyers to represent four clients — roughly one pro bono case per five lawyers. They blew past their goal by 500 percent. The Houston Association of Corporate Counsel and The Texas Lawbook have selected Hughes and Baker Hughes as its 2025 Achievement in Pro Bono and Public Service award recipient.
Sorrels Law Launches Beaumont Office with Veteran Maritime Litigator David James
Sorrels Law has expanded its Texas footprint again, this time by opening an office in Beaumont led by newly named partner David James, the firm announced in a news release on Tuesday.
Susman Godfrey: President Trump Executive Order is ‘Unconstitutional — Full Stop’
A lawyer for the U.S. Justice Department told a federal judge Thursday that President Donald Trump was legally exercising his executive authority by prohibiting lawyers with the Houston-based law firm Susman Godfrey from entering federal buildings or representing clients who had contracts with the federal government and suspending their security clearances. U.S. District Judge Loren AliKhan of Washington, D.C., repeatedly asked U.S. Deputy Associate Attorney General Richard Lawson to provide evidence supporting the president’s April 9 executive order condemning Susman Godfrey for racial discrimination in their hiring practices and for “spearheading efforts to weaponize the American legal system and degrading the quality of American elections.”
GT Taps Bill Katz to Co-Chair Antitrust Practice
GT Executive Chairman Richard Rosenbaum in the firm’s announcement highlighted Katz’s experience advising clients in the healthcare and energy industries. Katz had practiced his entire career at Thompson & Knight/Holland & Knight.