When Johnny Carson used to parody astronomer Carl Sagan on The Tonight Show, he’d stretch out the words “billions and billions” to accentuate the astronomer’s Mid-Atlantic delivery. The line became so famous that many people assumed Sagan said it.
He never did.
Now we have to borrow the phrase again. Not to describe galaxies or particles of star stuff, but to capture the sheer scale of billion-dollar-plus deals handled by Texas lawyers last year. And by year’s end, those billions and billions added up to more than a quarter of a trillion dollars in value.
According to The Texas Lawbook’s exclusive Corporate Deal Tracker, Texas dealmakers turned in one of their most active years ever, directing billion-dollar transactions across multiple industries. In 2025, there were 171 deals worth at least $1 billion involving Texas companies or Lone Star lawyers (or both), with a combined value of $825.9 billion. That’s more than the GDP of Ireland ($609.2 billion in 2024), yet barely a dwarf star compared to the $2.7 trillion GDP of Texas in 2024.
By comparison, in 2024, there were 135 Texas-related deals submitted to CDT that reached or broke the $1 billion barrier. Those deals had an aggregate value of $627.2 billion.
So, last year spiked upwards in deal count for billion-dollar-deals by 26.6 percent versus 2024, and the aggregate valuations as a result soared between 2024 and 2025 by 31.7 percent, or nearly $200 billion.
To put that in perspective, in 2023, the CDT reported 130 billion-dollar deals totaling $628.8 billion, which, at the time, was much higher than the 110 billion-dollar deals valued at $479.9 billion in 2021, the record year (a year of rebound from the pandemic the year prior) against which many firms had been measuring the market since.
At this point we’ll include a few words of caution. First, a billion ain’t worth what it used to be; a billion-dollar deal in September 2025 would have been a $720 million deal in January 2015, and we haven’t adjusted these numbers for inflation.
When examined quarter by quarter, 2025’s deal flow as measured by the CDT reflected the uneasy tempo of a volatile global M&A market. But big deals thrived nonetheless. The first quarter ushered in 37 billion-dollar transactions valued at $135.6 billion, setting a brisk tone for the year. Things didn’t slow down from there. The second quarter kicked into gear with 49 deals worth $248.9 billion, fueled by energy consolidation, data center investment and infrastructure plays that spanned states and even continents.
Had normalcy settled in (or been factored in) since Liberation Day?
The third quarter seemed to say yes, and proved Texas lawyers’ busiest stretch, 45 deals worth $210.2 billion, as private equity firms got into the act and raced to deploy capital. And even as interest rates stayed high and markets cooled, the fourth quarter closed on a robust note, beating the first quarter: 40 transactions totaling $231.1 billion.
But within all of that dealmaking, another trend stood out: the Texas-led contingent. Of the 171 total billion-dollar deals, 89 were spearheaded by Texas lawyers, each serving as lead counsel representing a principal party (buyer, seller or target) on a deal for their firm. Together, those 89 Texas-led deals carried an extraordinary cumulative value of $422.6 billion, almost half of the total billion-dollar deal flow connected to Texas.
Take that, New York! Well, maybe not so much, but there’s definitely a trend here. And there’s a reason why Texas has been the place every national firm wants to plant its flag for the last 15 years.
The third quarter alone accounted for much of that Texas-led momentum: 39 deals worth a crazy cool $189.9 billion. The first quarter posted 16 deals valued at $62.8 billion, the second quarter 20 deals at $77.2 billion, and the fourth quarter 14 at $92.8 billion, proof that Texas lawyers (and Texas-based firms) were everywhere from corporate boardrooms in New York to financial hubs in London, Singapore and Dubai.
And at the top of this towering pile sat the megadeals, 18 deals worth $10 billion or more, where Texas-connected lawyers helped steer some of the largest corporate combinations of the year. Six of those megadeals were Texas-led, including Dallas-based Kimberly-Clark’s $48.7 billion pursuit of Kenvue, Constellation Energy’s $26.6 billion acquisition of Houston-based Calpine and Blackstone Infrastructure’s $11.5 billion deal for TXNM Energy. Collectively, these megadeals reflected not only Texas’ corporate influence but also its long arm of the (Big)law, able to reach into energy, technology, infrastructure and finance with ease.
Here are the individual values of those 18 megadeals, including the buyer and seller/target, with Texas cities noted where applicable (deals led or co-led by Texas lawyers are in bold):
- $48.7 billion, Kimberly-Clark (Dallas); Kenvue
- $40 billion, AI Infrastructure Partnership; Aligned Data Centers (Plano)
- $34.5 billion, Charter Communications; Cox Communications
- $28 billion, Paramount Global; Paramount Skydance
- $27 billion, Blue Owl Capital; Meta Hyperion *$26.6 billion, Constellation Energy; Calpine Corp. (Houston)
- $25 billion, Blackstone; PPL $24.2 billion, Global Payments; Worldpay
- $22.2 billion, KKR; Sempra Infrastructure Partners
- $19 billion, Chart Industries; Flowserve Corp. (Irving)
- $17 billion, SpaceX (Starbase); EchoStar
- $13.6 billion, Baker Hughes (Houston); Chart Industries
- $13.5 billion, Fidelity National Information Services; Global Payments Inc.
- $13.4 billion, ADNOC; Pulsar Capital
- $12.8 billion, SM Energy; Civitas Resources
- $12 billion, NRG Energy (Houston); LS Power Equity Advisors
- $11.5 billion, Blackstone Infrastructure; TXNM Energy
- $11 billion, QXO; Beacon Roofing Supply
Last year, against a backdrop of tightening credit, geopolitical friction such as Iran’s saber-rattling and Russia’s aggression against Ukraine, along with relentless AI-driven energy needs, these “billions and billions” represented the expanding universe of the Texas dealscape.
Christi Trammell and Allen Pusey contributed to this story.
Coming Sunday: Rankings Season Kicks Off
Texas dealmakers didn’t just make headlines in 2025; they made history doing so. In all, 1,218 Texas transactional lawyers at 33 different law firms steered 171 deals — each worth at least $1 billion — that reshaped industries from energy and infrastructure to tech and finance.
This Sunday, The Texas Lawbook’s exclusive Corporate Deal Tracker newsletter pulls back the curtain and unveils the 2025 Billion-Dollar Deal Rankings. The CDT will name the law firms and the 103 specific Texas lawyers who led the most blockbuster transactions in 2025.
But there’s only one way to get the rankings content from The Lawbook when it’s published: You have to sign up to get the full rankings dataset delivered straight to your inbox.
Click here to sign up now so that you don’t miss the first of multiple stories over the next few weeks that examine Texas lawyers and their dealmaking.