© 2018 The Texas Lawbook.
By Natalie Posgate
(March 31) – Growing up, Mack Strother always thought he would be a doctor. His father was a doctor, his brother was a doctor, so it felt only natural for him to follow the family legacy.
But while in college at Southern Methodist University in the 1960s, “I made a D in quantitative analysis, which was a five-hour course with two three-hour labs a week,” Strother says. “I was going to have to take that all over again, and I just decided I’m not going to do that.”
He decided to become a lawyer instead. It appears to have paid off; after enjoying a successful career for five decades, 28 of Strother’s colleagues spent this week celebrating his retirement and his contributions to his namesake firm, McGuire, Craddock & Strother.
Turning 25 years old this year, MCS has become one of the top mid-sized firms in Dallas, known for its expertise in real estate, corporate & securities, finance and business litigation services. Strother is known for building up the firm’s real estate practice group and has a strong reputation with the commercial developers in Texas. He has called companies such as Lincoln Properties as clients.
Strother began his legal career in 1965 at a little law firm we call Akin Gump these days. Now at more than 900 attorneys, Strother was the ninth lawyer there. At Akin Gump, he practiced securities law, working both on the issuers and underwriters side. He helped take 25 to 30 companies public.
Strother left four years later to start his own firms but returned to Akin Gump nearly a decade later (by then the firm had grown to 300 or 400 lawyers). After being basically “out of [securities] work” when the stock market crashed in the 1980s, Strother shifted his practice to real estate and some corporate work.
In the early 1990s, Chuck McGuire – of the firm then known as Winstead, McGuire & Sechrest – was on the other side of a deal Strother was working on. A few weeks after finishing the deal, McGuire called Strother and told him that he was starting a new firm with a couple colleagues. “I’d like you to join us,” he said.
Along with Tom Craddock, the three lawyers formed McGuire, Craddock & Strother in 1993.
Asked what has been key to the firm’s success, Strother said “we were always reasonably successful, and we had a policy when we formed the firm that we were never going to hire any ‘rear ends.’
“We’ve maintained a pretty good record in that regard,” Strother said. “Over the years, we’ve had people come and go, but we’ve never had anybody who we weren’t happy to have here. There’s not a person at our firm that I don’t like. That’s not terribly universal, because most firms over 15 to 20 people have some people that you don’t care for much, but that’s never happened.”
Though he has already retired his practice at the firm, Strother said he will be back in the office “from time to time… more often than these people probably think.
“I love coming into the office, and I’ve got a lot of stuff to do for myself that I can’t do at home,” he said. “Now I may have to give up my corner office for a smaller one, but I’m happy to do that.”
Strother said he also plans spend his time doing service work.
Asked which hobby he looks most forward to pursuing, Stother said he was excited to devote more time to his golf game.
“I played golf in high school, I played golf in college, and I’ve played golf all my life,” he said. “I’ve been for the most part a very good golfer – I’m not today… it may have something to do with the fact that I’m about 78 years old.”
© 2018 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.