© 2013 The Texas Lawbook.
By Natalie Posgate
Staff Writer for The Texas Lawbook
Reed Smith’s much-anticipated arrival to Texas is finally here. The Pittsburgh firm announced Tuesday the opening of its Houston office – the firm’s 14th U.S. office and 25th global office – which is located in the heart of downtown in the 46-story GB Group Place building.
The firm successfully recruited 12 local partners from seven leading law firms to start the office. They are: E. Lee Haag and Chris Watt from Fulbright & Jaworski; Paul B. Turner from Sutherland Asbill & Brennan; Craig R. Enochs and Daniel Nossa from Jackson Walker; Charles “Stan” Perry, Kenneth E. Broughton and Francisco Rivero from Haynes and Boone; Stephen E. Scheve and Robert R. Riddle from Baker Botts; Wanda G. Holloway from Seyfarth Shaw; and Carol M. Burke from Pillsbury Winthrop Shaw Pittman.
The partners are in six practice groups, including energy, commercial litigation, life sciences health industry, labor & employment, financial industry and intellectual property.
Reed Smith had been looking to move into Texas for quite some time. The Texas Lawbook has previously reported Reed Smith talked to about a half-dozen law firms in Dallas and Houston about merging but none ended up biting.
But after talking to “well over 100 lawyers” (according to Reed Smith global head of strategy Michael Pollack), with the exclusive help of Houston headhunting firm Johnson and Downey, Reed Smith was able to find the right attorneys to start a Texas office of its own – without the help of a merge.
“I think as far as we know it’s the biggest opening of its kind,” Pollack said. “I’m excited for both the number and the quality of people [we have] and we’ve got many coming. I look forward to actively recruiting in the market.”
Pollack said the firm’s goal for this year is to grow the Houston office to 40 people, and essentially over time to 100 plus lawyers. With three counsel, one associate and one current Reed Smith partner acting as “integration partner,” the headcount for the new office currently sits at 17 people.
The three new counsel are Paul W. Bishop, Rhonda R. Caviedes and Fazila Issa. The new associate is Kevin M. Page.
The Reed Smith integration partner for the new office is David A. Thompson, who most recently was the managing partner of the firm’s San Francisco office. Reed Smith routinely relocates a senior partner with significant knowledge of its operations and clients into its new offices to help integrate the lateral partners into the firm’s global client relationships and work processes.
Partners who have joined Reed Smith say they were attracted to the firm’s global reputation, entrepreneurial spirit, well-run management, overall friendliness and the opportunity to build something from scratch.
“One of the things that really stood out about Reed Smith is how well managed of a firm it is,” said Kenneth Broughton, a member of the Houston office’s commercial litigation practice. “It has grown from 600 to 1800 lawyers in the past 10 years, and the retention level for those lawyers is considerably above the national average. They really are doing everything right.”
One of the other new partners, Wanda Holloway, said when Johnson and Downey first contacted her about possibly joining Reed Smith, she wasn’t looking to make a move. But once she learned more about the firm, she knew it was an opportunity that she couldn’t pass up.
“It was an irresistible opportunity,” said Holloway, who is part of the firm’s labor & employment practice. “One of the things attractive to me was the global footprint [of the firm].”
“This is an office of people who have good relationships with their [old] firms,” she added. “They’re moving toward an opportunity as opposed to away from anything.”
Something else that greatly attracted her to Reed Smith was a quality that she says is still “surprisingly unusual to this day” in the Houston market and even globally: strong female leadership.
“We have so many incredible women leading the firm in wonderful decision making roles,” Holloway said. “A huge number of our business generators are women in various practice groups and it’s something I think is really important to me and the firm.”
Holloway said one challenge the Houston office could have as it continues to grow will be finding the right people to integrate into the firm who have the same vision for the office as everybody else.
But overall, Houston Reed Smith attorneys are pretty enthusiastic about the new office’s future.
“The excitement that’s in the air over here [is] absolutely contagious in the office… We will be a lot bigger in a very short period of time,” Broughton said. “I think it’s just about getting the Reed Smith name out in the Houston community. Once people learn about Reed Smith and who we are as attorneys, they’ll be very impressed.”
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