© 2014 The Texas Lawbook.
By Mark Curriden, JD
Senior Writer for The Texas Lawbook
(May 19) – Bickel & Brewer, the Dallas law firm that pioneered Rambo-style litigation in North Texas, isn’t known for doing things quietly, but the litigation boutique announced without any fanfare or attention last month that John Bickel was officially retiring from the law firm he co-founded 30 years ago.
In a written statement, Bickel said starting the law firm with his friend Bill Brewer three decades ago and growing Bickel & Brewer into a nationally recognized trial law firm “has been a dream come true for me.
“When Bill and I started the firm, we were young, ambitious, entrepreneurial and passionate in our pursuit of big-ticket litigation,” Bickel said.
“I am incredibly proud of what the partnership and its largely self-funded foundation have accomplished, and I will follow the firm closely as I continue the practice of law,” he said. “I know the firm and the Bickel & Brewer Storefront will continue to do great work both inside and outside of the courtroom.”
Brewer said that his partnership with Bickel has been “a storybook relationship.” They are godfathers to each other’s children and their mothers became best friends and traveled the world together, he said.
“John and I met fortuitously in late 1983 through friends at a party who were amused that we had the same colored hair,” said Brewer, who is 62. “We went to lunch and in less than an hour, we decided that we would quit our respective law firms and start our own law firm.”
Bickel grew up in Houston, majored in engineering at West Point, spent three years as a military prosecutor after receiving his law degree and then worked as an associate in the litigation department at Thompson & Knight.
In March 1984, Bickel and Brewer created a law firm that shelved the traditional genteelness instilled in most Texas lawyers and introduced a style of aggressive, hard-charging trial lawyers willing to do just about anything for their clients to win.
A general counsel for a large corporation who asked not to be identified told The Texas Lawbook, “I didn’t hire John Bickel and Bill Brewer because they served hot tea and were kind to me and my family. I hired them to kick the other side’s ass and to win.”
And win they did, scoring dozens of multimillion-dollar court judgments for their corporate clients during the past three decades.
One of Bickel’s prominent early successes came in 1987 when he and Brewer represented Continuum, a Dallas software company that sued Incepts Inc., a Dallas-based competitor, for theft of trade secret information.
Bickel and Brewer swamped Incepts, which was backed by venture capitalists, in legal demands and discovery requests, followed by a court hearing on Continuum’s request for a temporary restraining order that lasted 12 weeks. The normal hearing for a TRO takes a few hours or, at most, a couple days.
The judge sided with Bickel’s client, ruling that Incepts had to stop distributing its products.
More decisively, Bickel and Brewer forced Incepts, a company that had only $2 million in annual revenues, to spend more than $1.8 million in legal fees defending the lawsuit. The litigation forced the company into bankruptcy.
Bickel, Brewer and the Continuum case were memorialized in a 1991 book by Walter Olsen called The Litigation Explosion. The book pointed to the tactics of Bickel and Brewer in the case as changing the face of litigation and as an example of the “affliction of over-lawyering.”
In recent years, Bickel, Brewer and the law firm have been representing an increasing number of corporate clients involved in business disputes around the globe – disputes that are resolved through international arbitration trials in London, Geneva, Paris, Hong Kong and Tokyo.
With success came rewards. The hourly rate Bickel and Brewer charged were at the top of the market, between $850 and $1,000 an hour.
While critics say the duo’s tactics have been overly aggressive and unprofessional, they also get wide acclaim for their commitment to public service.
Bickel also co-founded the Bickel & Brewer Storefront, a pro bono arm of the law firm that tackles cases for those who cannot afford a lawyer. The firm, for example, successfully represented Hispanic residents of Farmer’s Branch for the past seven years fighting a city ordinance that made it a crime for landlords to rent a house or apartment to people who are in the U.S. illegally.
In addition, Bickel co-founded the Bickel & Brewer Foundation, which has awarded more than $20 million in grants and funding to educational and healthcare efforts during the past 20 years.
Asked if Bickel’s retirement meant his name would be dropped from the firm’s name or branding, Brewer said, “Today, the firm is Bickel & Brewer. We continue to honor my good friend, John. No decisions have been made beyond that.”
© 2014 The Texas Lawbook. Content of The Texas Lawbook is controlled and protected by specific licensing agreements with our subscribers and under federal copyright laws. Any distribution of this content without the consent of The Texas Lawbook is prohibited.
If you see any inaccuracy in any article in The Texas Lawbook, please contact us. Our goal is content that is 100% true and accurate. Thank you.