Latham Relocates Two Lawyers Key to Houston Success to Austin

Michael Chambers and David Miller – two corporate lawyers key to Latham & Watkins’ market-changing foray into Houston a decade ago – are relocating to the firm’s nascent Austin office, The Texas Lawbook has learned.

The firm is betting Chambers and Miller’s combination of institutional knowledge and experience of building a successful Texas office will pay big dividends in Austin, too, where the firm opened this month with Samer Zabaneh and Jenifer Smith from DLA Piper and Scott Craig from Wilson Sonsini.

“Michael and Dave are fantastic additions to our team here in Austin. Each of them has a strong practice complementary to the market and incredible institutional knowledge, as well as a commitment to fully leveraging the full breadth of Latham’s capabilities to serve clients doing business here,” said Zabaneh, who leads the Austin office.

“Michael has a unique perspective as global vice chair of the corporate department, and a former lateral partner who helped start up a successful office himself,” Zabaneh added. “And Dave brings the unique perspective of a longtime Latham lawyer who understands Latham’s client-first ethos from every stage of a lawyer’s career here.”

Chambers, who has a residence in Austin and is expected to spend half of his time there, focuses his practice on private equity and debt and equity capital markets transactions. He was one of the initial group of partners that launched Latham’s Houston office in 2010. Ten years later, the Los Angeles-founded firm’s first Texas outpost achieved revenues of $140.8 million with 104 lawyers, according to the Texas Lawbook 50.

A “Latham lifer,” Miller summered in the firm’s New York office in 2005 and eventually moved to Houston in 2011 to help grow the firm’s capital markets practice there. He represents early stage growth companies, mature public companies and financial institutions and is active in the tech and renewables space. He also “participates heavily” in the firm’s pro bono program.

Recent deals Miller has been involved in include Vertiv’s acquisition of E&I Engineering Group; Renewable Energy Group’s Green Bond offering, in which he represented the initial purchasers; Solaris Water’s sustainability-linked bond offering, which was the first high-yield SLB for a domestic company; and Brinks Home Security in its restructuring and refinancing transactions.