In a significant lateral shift, eight corporate finance partners are moving their practices from Vinson & Elkins to join Paul Hastings, according to multiple sources who confirmed the move to The Texas Lawbook.
The number of corporate finance lawyers may grow to as many as two dozen, lawyers familiar with the move told The Lawbook.
This is possibly the largest group of Texas partners from one practice group to lateral from a single law firm to another law firm. In 2013, eight partners from multiple practice areas, including litigators Yvette Ostolaza and Angela Zambrano, left Weil Gotshal to join Sidley Austin in Dallas.
Leaders at Paul Hastings declined to comment.
The V&E lawyers in Houston include Brian Moss, Guy Gribov, James Longhofer and Alex Cross, while Erec Winandy, Christopher Dewar, Bailey Pham and Rafael Alvarado are in Dallas.
They advise banks, private credit funds, private equity funds and borrowers — including JPMorgan, Wells Fargo, Bank of America, Citibank, Apollo, HPS, Goldman, Nuveen, The Shaw Group, Kayne Anderson, Carlyle, Sixth Street, Cibolo, Stellus, Talos Energy, Encap Energy, EIG and Texas Capital Bank.
In Texas, this new finance team builds on the momentum generated by the firm’s recent additions of the leading corporate team of David Elder, Chris Centrich and Patrick Hurley, all of whom joined earlier this month, and complex commercial litigator Paul Genender, who joined last fall as chair of the firm’s Texas commercial litigation practice and co-chair of the Houston office.
Paul Hastings has a Houston office and is opening one in Dallas with these hires, according to a source familiar with the move. The firm, noted nationally for its antitrust and IP expertise with clients such as Google, Samsung and Trend Micro, has been in Texas for more than a decade.
Along with V&E, Paul Hastings was one of 15 law firms operating in Texas that reached elite financial status, according to data from the most recent Texas Lawbook 50. To make the Lawbook 50 elite list, law firms must generate $1.3 million in revenues per lawyer and $3 million in profits per equity partner. The Lawbook ranks the firms based on RPL because PEP is a number that is easy to manipulate. Paul Hastings ranked seventh on the most recent Lawbook 50 elite list. V&E, the largest Texas legacy firm in the elite list, ranked No. 12.