© 2018 The Texas Lawbook.
By Natalie Posgate and Mark Curriden
(May 3) – Gruber Hail Johansen Shank was never a huge firm in terms of lawyers, peaking at about 30 lawyers a couple years ago. But the litigation boutique, which was created in 2006, had big name, talented trial lawyers, prominent clients and an outsized influence in North Texas.
The firm officially closed its doors last week with the departures of its three remaining named partners, Brian Hail, Mark Johansen and Mark Shank.
Hail started Tuesday at Kane Russell Coleman & Logan, where he worked earlier in his career. Shank, the firm’s managing partner, moved to Diamond McCarthy, where he joins old friends Darrell Jordan and Mark Sales. Perkins Coie announced Thursday that Johansen has joined its commercial litigation practice.
In addition, former Gruber Hail senior counsel Orin Harrison III has moved his litigation practice to Foley Gardere.
“It was sad to close the doors after working so hard and experiencing so much success, but we all came to conclusion that it is the time to move on,” said Shank, who has specialized in labor and employment law for about four decades. “These are great lawyers and they have been my friends and we are still friends, just now working at different firms.”
The Texas Lawbook reported on April 16 that Gruber Hail founder Mike Gruber had left the firm to join Dorsey & Whitney, a Minnesota firm that opened a Dallas office in 2017.
The four partners decided to wind down the firm in light of the current invasion of national law firms in Dallas and the way it is changing the landscape of the legal market in Big D.
Hail said the “trickling of calls and emails” the Gruber Hail partners were getting from headhunters looking to swoop them away to the national firms caused the four named partners to reevaluate their opportunities.
“We decided after discussing it that we were each going to pursue different opportunities,” he said. “Each of us has unique skillsets… I have little doubt we’ll be working on cases together in the future. We all just decided to pursue our own pathway. There were a lot of good and interesting opportunities.”
Shank, who is a highly regarded commercial arbitrator and mediator, said that the decision to break up instead of stay together allowed each partner to figure out what they wanted to do next.
“I simply want to practice at a great firm where I can join my old friends and former partners from Hughes & Luce and have some fun,” Shank said. “Diamond McCarthy was the best fit for me.”
In joining the Dallas office of Perkins Coie, Johansen said he believed his clients and his complex commercial litigation practice would benefit from the Seattle-based firm’s national platform.
“I am extremely happy to be joining Perkins Coie where I will be able to offer my litigation clients the expanded services that Perkins Coie offers,” Johansen said in a written statement. “I talked with a number of firms, but it became clear to me early on that Perkins Coie was the best fit. They had a need for a seasoned litigation partner in Dallas and their full-service platform was exactly what I was looking for so it was an easy choice.”
Bobby Majumder, who is the managing partner of Perkins Coie’s Dallas office, said Johansen’s practice aligns with the firm’s strategic plan for Texas.
The departures of the four named Gruber Hail partners marks the finale of a series of departures the firm has seen over the last couple years. In early 2016, then-named partner Michael Hurst and Shonn Brown led a group of seven attorneys that left the firm cross-town rival Mike Lynn’s firm, which is now named Lynn Pinker Cox & Hurst.
A year and a half later, named partner David Elrod and three other attorneys left the firm (then nicknamed Gruber Elrod) to join Shackleford, Bowen, McKinley & Norton.
Most recently, Dave Wishnew, Trey Crawford and Michael Lang – a trio of young partners – left in February to open up their own shop.
Hail said he talked with an array of other types of firms – national, litigation boutiques, regional and local – but KRCL was most attractive to him not only because of his history with the firm, but also because it made the most sense with his practice.
Hail said his business litigation practice involves representing many plaintiffs on a contingency or alternative fee arrangement, and “a vast majority of firms in Dallas don’t do contingency at all.” He also said KRCL is “very well managed” and allows him to serve his clients beyond their litigation needs due to the firm’s expertise in other practice areas such as corporate and real estate.
Though many of his Dallas peers are accepting lucrative offers at the flurry of national firms invading the Dallas metroplex, Hail said doing so was not attractive to him because only so many lawyers at those big firms are true trial lawyers.
“The dirty little secret most of those in the business community don’t know is people who call themselves trial attorneys are not,” Hail said.
Though many are still good “litigators,” Hail said he tells his clients if they were to look most ‘trial lawyers’ in the eye and ask them how many times they’ve been in front of a jury in the last five years, “a lot of times it’s none or very little.”
Plus: “I don’t think there’s a pressing need for thousand-dollar-an-hour attorneys in Dallas,” Hail added. “Most firms moving to town are acting like there is.”
Asked what he thinks will happen to the Dallas legal market in the next five to 10 years, Hail predicts there is going to be a “shakeout,” comparing the reaction to when there’s overbuild in the real estate world.
“There’s a need for condos so everyone rushes in and when the market shakes out a bit… there are a lot that are not going to make it,” he said.
Other Gruber Hail attorneys who have made their moves to other firms include Chelsea Hilliard, who joined Foley Gardere with Harrison, and Tricia DeLeon, who joined Holland & Knight.
© 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.
If you see any inaccuracy in any article in The Texas Lawbook, please contact us. Our goal is content that is 100% true and accurate. Thank you.