© 2014 The Texas Lawbook.
By Natalie Posgate – (October 7) – Chicago-based Schiff Hardin has opened a Dallas office with the lateral hires of five sought after finance, corporate and securities attorneys from Squire Patton Boggs. The new office marks the firm’s first in the Lone Star State.
The five partners spearheading the new office are Larry Makel, Gina Betts, Kenneth Betts, Stan Mayo and Jamie Whatley (who is a former Squire Patton Boggs attorney but was most recently at Lillard Wise Szygenda).
Gina Betts, who serves as the new office’s coordinating partner, said her group had known Schiff Hardin for years through deals they’ve both handled. The firm first approached Makel, then entered talks with Betts and the rest of the group in early September. She said she knew it was a done deal by the time dinner was over during their visit to the Chicago headquarters.
“When you can sit down with a group of people you have never met before and have a fabulous dinner and feel like you’ve known them forever, that says a lot,” she said. “We laughed and we go, ‘they’re just like all of us.’ “
Schiff Hardin’s 150-year track record of success and the firm’s conservative and thoughtful growth plans within the U.S. attracted the Dallas lawyers to the Chicago firm, Betts said.
Betts said other firms – both in Dallas and out-of-towners looking to expand to Dallas – were also scouting her group, but Schiff Hardin was the best fit.
“There are very few firms in the country who don’t have debt,” she said. “If we have a big bump in the economy, or God forbid, another terrorist attack, when you don’t have debt it’s easier to make it through the tough times.”
The decision to move certainly did not lack some contemplation, though. Betts said Makel, who started Patton Boggs’ Dallas office, “was so torn about leaving.” And it had only been one year since Betts herself had joined the firm.
But she assured the decision had nothing to do with any dissatisfaction with Patton Boggs’ merger in June with Squire Sanders.
“The Squire people were very nice… it’s just you get to a point where you go, ‘O.K., it’s time to move on,’ and I think we had all gotten there,” said Betts, who spent 25 years of her career at Locke Lord before her two recent moves.
In addition to more corporate finance lawyers, Betts said Schiff Hardin’s new Dallas office will add attorneys who practice bankruptcy and litigation. The office is temporarily residing on 1717 McKinney Avenue until it finds a permanent home.
The attorneys spearheading the Dallas office are well-known for representing clients in debt and equity public and private transactions, as well as in LBOs, MBOs, portfolio company acquisitions and dispositions, fund formations, corporate governance, SBIC compliance and SEC reporting.
Schiff Hardin is a full-service firm that was founded in Chicago in 1864. In the past two years, it has combined with Washington, D.C.-based Bruder, Gentile & Marcoux and New York-based Mazur Carp & Rubin. The firm now has more than 400 lawyers in eight cities across the U.S.
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