Prominent Dallas trial lawyer Tom Melsheimer and King & Spalding Chairman Robert Hays had dinner one night in August in a private dining room at Fearing’s in the Ritz Carlton Hotel on McKinney Avenue.
When Hays asked his opinion of the Atlanta-founded law firm, Melsheimer confessed, “Being honest, I don’t know much.”
“I know you have an elite, best-in-class trial practice, [but] I’ve never had a case with or against lawyers at King & Spalding,” Melsheimer told Hays. “You opened too small when you launched your Dallas office [in February 2024]. You should have made a bigger splash and a bigger impact.”
Hays agreed.
For three hours, Melsheimer and Hays talked, ate and drank. Mostly, they talked.
“They presented their financial numbers, which are incredibly impressive, and told me about their bold strategic plan, which features two key ingredients: hiring elite talents and growing in critical geographic locations, especially Dallas and Texas,” Melsheimer told The Texas Lawbook. “They told me that they want me to become the face of their global trial practice.”
“I left the dinner impressed — they certainly knew a whole lot more about me than I knew about them — but I felt like I would be staying at Winston, which is just a great law firm,” he said.
But in October, November and December, King & Spalding accelerated and intensified its pursuit of Melsheimer. Sources said K&S offered a three-year guarantee that will pay Melsheimer eight-digits each year. His hourly rate will top $2,000 this year.
“I’m not going to discuss that, but the firm brought in an academy award-winning lineup of legal talent, including former U.S. Deputy Attorney General Sally Yates and Houston office managing partner Tracie Renfroe, who has built an extraordinarily successful operation in Houston,” he said.
Melsheimer, who turned 65 last Thursday, said King & Spalding told him and his long-time law partner Steve Stodghill that they would have the resources to build a Dallas office and trial practice that would be “top of the market.”
“And I really like building things,” he said.
Texas Lawbook 50 data shows that King & Spalding’s Texas operations ranked 12th in generating revenue at $254.8 million, an increase of 20 percent over the previous year. Winston placed 15th with $215 million, down two percent.
King & Spalding reported 2024 revenue per lawyer hit $1.78 million. Winston’s RPL in 2024 was $1.36 million. In profits per partner, King & Spalding hit $5.93 million, compared to $3.52 million for Winston.
Lawyers for King & Spalding say their PPP in 2025 jumped to $7 million.
Hays told The Lawbook that Dallas is a “fertile market for us to achieve our growth strategies.”
“Many big law firms have large litigation practices, but not many have a lot of actual trial lawyers with lots of trial experiences and victories,” Hays said. “We asked what the dream team of trial lawyers be, and Tom is on everyone’s short list.”
Hays described Melsheimer and Stodghill as “Lennon and McCartney, except that Tom and Steve bring different things to the table.”
“But everywhere they have been, they built great teams and had great successes,” he said.
Melsheimer, Stodghill and seven other litigation partners from Winston started their new positions at King & Spalding in Dallas today.
“I loved Winston, and I was on top of the mountain with Winston,” Melsheimer said. “But then I saw another mountain. King & Spalding made an offer that I could not say no to, so I didn’t.”
“King & Spalding understands that this is a war for the best talent because the best talent attracts the best clients,” he said. “King & Spalding is in it to win this war.”
With the addition of the Melsheimer group, King & Spalding will have 26 attorneys in its Dallas office. The firm also has 83 attorneys in Houston and 40 lawyers in Austin. Firmwide, King & Spalding has 1,300 attorneys in 26 offices.
“The firm wants us to build an office as big as we want,” Melsheimer said. “I don’t see any reason why we can’t be an office of 100 lawyers. The work is certainly there for it.”
Melsheimer said the firm’s hiring of Veronica Moyé from Gibson Dunn in February 2024 played a significant factor in his decision to make the move.
“We want to be careful and strategic about who we hire in Dallas, but Tom is at the top of any list and we really had to sell the firm and this opportunity to Tom,” Moyé said. “Tom brings an expertise to so many specific practice areas — white collar, intellectual property and patent litigation and complex commercial cases — but he is also one of the best and the best-known trial lawyers in Texas and across the U.S.
“I’ve never had the opportunity to try a case with Tom, but I am definitely going to look for such opportunities,” she said.
Stodghill, who actually met with the King & Spalding leaders first and encouraged Melsheimer to meet with Hays, said his new firm has “a great history and a powerhouse litigation team and great clients.”
“King & Spalding wanted the John Wick of trial lawyers, and they got him in Tom,” said Stodghill, who has represented more than 25 billionaires, including Mark Cuban, during his career. “The DFW legal market is a mirror of the DFW business market. It is a growing and diversified economy with the second most Fortune 200 companies behind only New York City.”
“It is hard for a firm to make an impact without making a big splash like this,” he said.
Tracie Renfroe, managing partner of King & Spalding’s Houston office, said adding Melsheimer and his team will have a significant impact on the firm’s other Texas offices.
“Tom is a legendary trial lawyer who has the ability, the experience and the record of success in handling the largest disputes in the country,” Renfroe said.
The other partners joining Melsheimer and Stodghill include:
- Dallas lawyer Natalie Arbaugh, an alum of Southern Methodist University Dedman School of Law, who focuses on complex, high-profile business and intellectual property disputes;
- Dallas lawyer Rex Mann, a University of Texas at Austin School of Law graduate, who specializes in intellectual property practice with a focus on complex patent and trade secret litigation;
- Dallas lawyer Michael Bittner, also an alum from UT Austin School of Law, is an intellectual property trial lawyer;
- Dallas attorney Ahtoosa Dale, a graduate of Baylor University School of Law, focuses her practice on complex commercial litigation and IP litigation in a range of industries;
- Dallas attorney Chad Walker, who earned his law degree from the UT Austin School of Law, handles patent cases and complex commercial litigation disputes, including qui tam cases;
- Charlotte lawyer Danielle Williams, who received her J.D. from Wake Forest University School of Law, focuses on intellectual property litigation, including representing a team owned by basketball legend Michael Jordan in a high-profile antitrust case against NASCAR; and
- Brian Ferguson, an Albany Law School graduate and lawyer in Washington, D.C., handles high-stakes IP disputes involving an array of technologies.
Hays said the firm is expecting to add associates to support the nine new litigation partners.
Melsheimer said he also likes that King & Spalding was not one of the large corporate law firms that reached settlement agreements with the White House and that the firm has not shied away from tackling important litigation that might offend the president.
“I did not want to go to a firm that is weak in the knees,” he said. “I want to be a firm that does what is right, even if there are political consequences. And I am joining one of those firms that is doing what is right.”