Schick & Copeland Bolt V&E to Start Houston Firm

© 2014 The Texas Lawbook.

By Mark Curriden, JD

(February 5) – Come to find out, old dogs do learn new tricks.

Bob Schick and Morgan Copeland have been two stalwarts of the Vinson & Elkins litigation practice for more than three decades. They worked on some of the biggest toxic tort and products liability cases in the country. They were young lawyers watching trial legends such as Harry Reasoner and Knox Nunnally as they gained their own experience.

Everyone believed they were lifers at V&E.

Until Wednesday, when the duo announced they have left the security blanket large law firm to start their own business litigation boutique in Houston.

“We’ve been talking about going out on our own since we were fifth year associates and this was personally and professionally the right time to make the move,” says Schick, a 1981 graduate of the University of Houston Law Center and a member of the American College of Trial Lawyers.

“We wanted more freedom and flexibility on rates and we didn’t want to worry about client conflicts that come with being at a large law firm,” says Schick. “And we wanted the opportunity to get to the courthouse more often to try more cases. We want to do more than the $100 million lawsuits. We want to be able to do the $10 million cases, too.”

Copeland, a 1981 graduate of the University of Texas School of Law and member of the American Board of Trial Advocates, says it was a difficult decision for he and Schick to leave V&E, which he said was surprised by their decision.

“There will always be a place and a need for large law firms like V&E to handle large, complex litigation matters, but the market for litigation boutiques is certainly expanding,” Copeland says. “We are leaving V&E on the best possible terms. We have a lot of friends there who are great lawyers.”

While their expertise has been in the area of energy and environmental litigation, Copeland and Schick also have done their fair share of commercial litigation.

Copeland and Schick have hired Sabrina Little DiMichele, a former V&E litigation associate and now a staff lawyer with the Texas Court of Appeals for the 14th District in Houston, as counsel. The pair says they plan to add two more lawyers to the firm during the next three months and then a couple more lawyers over the following year.

If you get a chance, check out Copeland and Schick’s bios on their website at www.schickcopeland.com. They are personal, informative and easy to read – a refreshing change from most bios, including my own.

While at V&E, Schick and Copeland represented corporate clients involved in several high stakes cases. They defended Firestone in hundreds of cases involving tire blowouts on Ford Explorers and they represented Wyeth Laboratories in hundreds of cases in which people claimed they had been injured from using the diet drug combo fen-phen.

In a very high profile case, Copeland represented Colonial Pipeline after two of the company’s large pipelines ruptured, causing the San Jacinto River to catch fire. More than 17,000 people sued. Copeland represented Colonial in the first of the cases that went to trial. After three months of arguments and testimony, a jury in the fall of 1997 found in favor of Colonial. The jury verdict, which came in Beaumont, led to a favorable settlement agreement for the defendant.

Schick defended International Harvester in 1990 in a bet-the-company case that every trial lawyer at the time said would be difficult to win. The facts were tragic.

A family of 10 was driving home to Chicago after attending a funeral in Mexico two nights before Christmas. It was about 10 p.m. and raining when the family’s station wagon slammed into a parked 18-wheeler tractor-trailer. Nine members of the family died.

Lawyers for the family sued International Harvester, which manufactured the trailer, because the trailer did not have four-way flashing lights when parked. The victim’s family sought $3 billion in damages. But a Starr County, Texas jury completely cleared Schick’s client of any wrongdoing or liability after a three-month trial.

“We are just old fashion trial lawyers starting all over again,” Copeland says.

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