© 2018 The Texas Lawbook.
By Mark Curriden
(April 10) – When prominent labor and employment partner Marc Katz decided to leave Andrews Kurth in January 2018, he talked with his clients about potential law firms to join.
“Clients universally put DLA Piper at the top of their lists for talent and abilities,” said Katz, who joined the firm Feb. 1. “The international platform was a big factor.
“I’ve been here for two months and I’ve opened new files for clients in eight different countries,” he said.
A global law firm with more than 4,000 lawyers in 40 countries, DLA Piper has operated in Texas for two decades with small outposts in Austin, Dallas and Houston. It has added partners here, and lost several to competitors, too.
The firm, however, has been on a lateral hiring spree during the past year – especially during the past three months – that has increased its lawyer headcount in the state by 50 percent.
Last week, DLA added two white-collar criminal defense and securities litigation partners in its Dallas office, which has doubled in size since Jan. 1. Firm leaders say they expect to announce additional hires in the next couple months.
“It is all about finding the right team and the right members of that team,” said John Gilluly, an Austin-based corporate partner who leads DLA’s efforts in Texas.
Exactly one year ago, DLA leaders in Texas began to selectively target and recruit key lawyers with practices ranging from corporate M&A and institutional investments to tax, employment law and litigation.
DLA’s lateral hires were one or two at a time last year, but then came in bunches during the first quarter of 2018.
“The legal market in Texas has really grown up during the past 10 to 15 years,” Katz said. “It is a much more sophisticated market because clients are demanding more services from their lawyers.”
Gilluly agrees.
“The way legal services are procured in Texas has changed,” he said. “It is far less parochial. It is much less personality driven than it used to be.”
The DLA additions suggest that the national law firms have moved beyond just targeted Texas-based law firms for new hires and that they now have lawyers at other national law firms and even corporate in-house legal departments in their sights.
DLA’s renewed focus on Texas started last April when it lured two lawyers – former Greenberg Traurig real estate partner Carey Gunn Venditti and former Baker McKenzie tax partner Caryn Smith to join its Austin office.
Then, the pace accelerated late last summer with a series of lateral hires:
Aug. 1: Corporate partner Gisler Donnenberg jumped from Paul Hastings to DLA’s Houston office;
Aug. 10: Noble Americas corporate counsel Deanna Reitman joined in Houston;
Oct. 11: Austin litigation partner Amy Rudd moved over from Dechert;
Oct. 24: Houston corporate law partner Jason Whiteley jumped from Willkie Farr & Gallagher to DLA;
Nov. 3: LyondellBasell global litigation chief Mark Waite joined DLA in Houston;
Jan. 28: Former Thompson & Knight corporate partner Steven Bartz joined DLA’s Dallas office;
Feb. 1: Katz, employment law partner Isabel Crosby and litigator Rob Hoffman left AK for DLA;
Feb. 5: Dentons’ Dallas office managing partner C. Michael Moore and litigation partner Matthew Nichol joined DLA in Dallas;
March 6: Six Jackson Walker partners in Austin – David Parrish, Nicole Brennig, Elise Green, Philip Svahn, Sara Stinnett and Richard Cardillo – moved their practice representing large institutional funds, including pension systems, endowments and insurance companies, in domestic and international investments to DLA;
April 5: Two prominent Greenberg Traurig partners who specialize in white-collar criminal defense and securities litigation, Jason Lewis and Jason Hopkins, joined DLA’s Dallas office.
This does not include the associates who joined these partners making the move.
“We realized that our old firm just did not have the platform that our clients needed,” Parrish said. “It became crystal clear from our clients that we were hindered by being limited to having only Texas offices.”
Katz said that Texas-based law firms face some competitive challenges going forward.
“There is a strength to having a strong Texas presence for Texas clients,” he said. “It seems like law firms are either going to become more local or more global.”
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