SBSB Eastham Expands Admiralty and Maritime Practice with New Galveston Office
In the last six months, Schouest, Bamdas, Soshea, BenMaier & Eastham has opened offices in two Texas port cities, Corpus Christi and now Galveston.
Free Speech, Due Process and Trial by Jury
In the last six months, Schouest, Bamdas, Soshea, BenMaier & Eastham has opened offices in two Texas port cities, Corpus Christi and now Galveston.

The Houston office of Latham & Watkins had not been open for a year when Ryan Maierson experienced a significant realization. The office opened in February 2010, and as the year progressed, he and the other partners at Baker Botts began to marvel at how easily this "non-native" firm from Los Angeles integrated itself into Texas's established transactional law environment.
Other national firms had previously entered the Texas market. However, with Latham — the second most profitable law firm in the world — something felt different. In less than a year, Latham had achieved what no other national firm had managed to do: it instilled a sense of fear in the long-established Texas firms that had previously dominated corporate law in the Lone Star State.
Fifteen years later, this is the story of how Latham changed the game in Texas.
The bad news for Texas-based corporate law firms is that revenues, profits per partner and demand for legal services significantly trailed their out-of-state competitors during 2024, according to new Citi Law Firm Group data provided Monday to The Texas Lawbook. But the good news is that those outside national law firms — including Kirkland & Ellis, Gibson Dunn, Latham & Watkins and Sidley — growing faster and richer now make up about 60 percent of the Texas corporate legal market, according to the Texas Lawbook 50 report for 2024.
To be a success in the legal profession hinges much more on how you work than where you work. Taking ownership of your own success and not expecting someone else to provide it for you is every bit as important today as it was 40 years ago. But what the series revealed is that different generations have a different sense of what go-getting looks like today.

The world of corporate law lost someone special last week. Olivia Clarke was not a lawyer. She was not a judge. She was not a general counsel. Olivia was the communications director at Kirkland & Ellis. She also was a former reporter and editor at the Chicago Daily Law Bulletin. She knew her lawyers and firm and she equally knew our work and business. She was a strong advocate for her colleagues at the world’s largest corporate law firm, but lawyers inside Kirkland say she was equally an advocate pushing them to be open with journalists.
After a decade-long battle with cancer, Olivia died last week. She was only 46. “Olivia was incredibly capable and unfailingly thoughtful,” Texas Lawbook senior editor Allen Pusey said Monday.
Butler Snow announced Wednesday that it has expanded the firm’s Austin office with the addition of 14 attorneys, all of whom were at Enoch Kever.
The wave of partnership promotions continues as 10 more law firms have announced Texas additions to their respective 2024-25 partnership classes.
Clyde & Co., a global law firm based in the UK, announced on Jan. 2 that it is expanding into the Texas legal market by merging with Dallas' Tillman Batchelor, an insurance litigation-focused firm.
Vartabedian Hester & Haynes and Forshey Prostok are ringing in the new year by adding expanded services for their clients through the combination.
The parade of firms announcing their 2024-25 partnership class continued Thursday. Two global corporate law firms — Baker McKenzie and Reed Smith — each announced that three of their younger Texas lawyers had been elected to their partnerships, while Eversheds Sutherland promoted one.
Correction: An earlier version of this story misidentified the number of new Texas partners announced by Baker McKenzie, as well as a promotion that wasn't to its partnership class. The Lawbook regrets the error.
Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher has admitted five new Texas lawyers to its partnership. The Los Angeles-founded firm, which has about 180 lawyers in Dallas and Houston, made the announcement Wednesday.
Twenty-two corporate law firms operating in Texas have announced their partner promotions — 112 in all — for the 2024-25 season. Four more firms announced their new partnership ranks.
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