Kelly Hart, Porter Hedges, Jackson Walker and five other law firms tracked by the Texas Lawbook 50 are 98 percent Texas operations with only a handful of 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 Recruits Head of Commercial Litigation Practice
Prominent personal injury law firm Sorrels Law has tapped Houston lawyer Brian A. Baker to lead its commercial litigation practice.
Former PepsiCo GC Leanne Oliver Joins Phillips Murrah
Oliver achieved many successes during her nearly three decades at PepsiCo and was promoted six times. She successfully defended the multinational food and beverage company against major class-action lawsuits, led strategic corporate acquisitions, and developed innovative employment policies and management training programs. Ex-PepsiCo General Counsel Larry Thompson told The Texas Lawbook in a 2021 profile of Oliver that, “No one really knows PepsiCo as well as Leanne. She has brought enormous value to the company and to the entire legal profession.”
Texas Lawbook 50 — Susman Godfrey Scores ‘Second Best Year Ever’ in 2024
Even as Susman Godfrey is engaged in a monumental federal court fight with President Donald Trump that threatens the law firm’s very existence, the Houston-based litigation powerhouse reported 2024 revenues and profits that are once again the envy of their competitors. The firm’s revenues last year were down from its record-smashing numbers of 2023, but it was still Susman Godfrey’s second-best year in its 44-year history.
Texas Firm Headcount Inched Up 1% in 2024
Big corporate law firms operating in Texas dramatically slowed their hiring in 2024, adding the fewest new lawyers since the pandemic year of 2020. The 50 largest law firms doing business in Texas grew, on average, by only two attorneys last year — down from an average of four in 2023, according to new data compiled as part of the Texas Lawbook 50 annual firm business review. And that number is skewed due to the significant headcount growth of four law firms — Jackson Walker, Kirkland & Ellis, Paul Hastings and Sheppard Mullin. Remove those four firms and the average firm in Texas witnessed a lawyer headcount decline in 2024.