O’Melveny has added an experienced partner to its general litigation and energy industry groups, the firm announced Tuesday.
Denise Scofield, who joined O’Melveny’s Houston office, was most recently a partner and head of the Houston litigation practice at Winston & Strawn. The focus of her practice is defending industrial clients in the sectors of oil and gas, chemical, pharmaceutical, manufacturing and transportation, according to O’Melveny’s news release.
“What really struck me about O’Melveny is their deep commitment to establishing roots in Texas,” Scofield said in an interview with The Texas Lawbook. “The firm is actually really truly investing in its Texas practice and it’s got this great sky’s-the-limit mentality that’s just really attractive and meaningful at this stage of my career.”
Firm chair Bradley J. Butwin touted Scofield’s trial skills and expertise, calling her an “immediate asset” to the O’Melveny’s clients.
“She is widely recognized as one of the premier trial lawyers in Texas, and she is a perfect fit for our firm’s growing roster of all-star Texas litigators,” Butwin said in the news release.
Los-Angeles founded O’Melveny has been rapidly bolstering its Texas offices since it moved to the state in 2021. The firm has added more than 70 lawyers, including 29 partners, to its Houston, Dallas and Austin offices.
Scofield “has a sterling reputation as one of Houston’s most formidable and respected trial lawyers,” added Tim Durst, O’Melveny partner and Texas regional head for litigation. Scofield is a past president of the Houston Bar Association.
Prior to working at Winston, Scofield was at Morgan Lewis where she was part of the legal team that won a federal court dismissal in 2013 for a Schlumberger LTD subsidiary in environmental litigation related to the 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil rig explosion. She said she was an early partner at Morgan Lewis’ Houston office, which gave her a “deep understanding” of how to successfully launch an office.
Scofield has also worked at Vinson & Elkin, King & Spalding and Bracewell. She said she was among the team of lawyers that helped open the King & Spalding office in Houston in 1996.
Scofield said she is excited to move to O’Melveny, in part, because of the opportunity it presents to grow a young office in Houston, which she enjoyed doing for past firms.
Scofield is a graduate of Southern Methodist University Dedman School of Law.
The following interview has been edited for clarity.
What attracted you to O’Melveny?
Really, it’s the forward focus that they have and the just incredible opportunity to start a new chapter with folks I know well from the Houston legal community and consider to be exceptional trial lawyers and great friends. What really struck me about O’Melveny is their deep commitment to establishing roots in Texas. The firm is actually really truly investing in its Texas practice and it’s got this great sky’s-the-limit mentality that’s just really attractive and meaningful at this stage of my career.
One of the biggest reasons is because of their real emphasis on the development of women trial lawyers. I think in a lot of Big Law, now, you see women who are put into leadership positions within the firm, you see them doing more of those sorts of things on a day-to-day basis, in firm life. I think the next step for women lawyers is to have that opportunity to shine in their professional capacity as well and that’s by being first chair trial lawyers. That’s by running transactions, being the deal lawyer. And I’ve been really impressed with how O’Melveny has been really intentional and how it’s taken its really talented women lawyers, and really given the opportunity to shine in the courtroom. There’s an [American Lawyer] article that came out in June of 2021 and I love that I’m here now because it struck me back then that there were not a lot of law firms who were really walking the talk, where they were actually really implementing programs and training and putting the resources behind the words of being able to put women in courtrooms and O’ Melveny’s done that. I have a number of women associates with whom I work and for me, this is a really great opportunity not only for myself, but for them to take the opportunity to have the resources to be able to shine in the courtroom.
How much had you worked together either as co-counsel or opposing counsel?
I’ve known in the legal community and served in various leadership roles with Travis Sales and John Anaipakos for the past 30 years, and have always been so impressed by their trial skills, but also their own deep commitment to our profession and to our community.
What trends are you seeing in Texas?
One thing that I think is really interesting from a Texas litigation perspective right now is the development of the Texas business court. And that’s something that we’re really highlighting and being proactive about with our clients. These courts are loosely modeled on the Delaware Chancery Court. They provide a really great opportunity for litigators to work with our transactional counterparts to be proactive in developing language in corporate deals and transaction documents that would afford for disputes of a business nature to be heard by the Texas business courts as opposed to courts of general jurisdiction.