Lawbook 50: Four Texas Firms Growing East, West and Across the Seas

Baker Botts, Haynes Boone, Bracewell and Vinson & Elkins employed employed 2,360 lawyers and generated nearly $2.9 billion in firmwide revenues in 2024. All four Texas-headquartered corporate law firms reported record revenues and record profits in 2024, according to the Texas Lawbook 50. The data also shows another interesting trend: All four are growing more than twice as fast in their offices outside of Texas than they are in their home state operations.

June 4, 2025 Mark Curriden

Lawbook 50 — The Texas Magnificent Seven

Seven corporate law firms operating in Texas witnessed extraordinary growth in 2024. The Texas version of the Magnificent Seven far outpaced their competitors by increasing Texas headcount by 24 percent in 2024 and Texas revenue by an astonishing 42 percent, according to The Texas Lawbook 50, which documents the annual Texas headcount and revenues of business law firms. Three of the Tex Mag Seven were founded in California, three in New York and one in Chicago. All seven firms achieved record-high revenues in 2024.

May 20, 2025 Mark Curriden

Lawbook 50: Eight Firms — All Texas, All the Time, All Profitable

Kelly Hart, Porter Hedges, Jackson Walker and five other law firms tracked by the Texas Lawbook 50 are 98 percent Texas operations with only a handful of lawyers outside the state. All eight law firms hit record highs last year in revenues and profits, and they are growing revenue and headcount at the same pace as the mega corporate firms that surround them. This gang of eight generated $1.046 billion in revenue in 2024 — up nine percent from the prior year, according to Lawbook 50 research. “We had another record-breaking year in 2024 — beyond what we reasonably expected,” Porter Hedges co-managing partner Joyce Soliman told The Lawbook.

May 19, 2025 Mark Curriden

Texas Lawbook 50 — Susman Godfrey Scores ‘Second Best Year Ever’ in 2024

Even as Susman Godfrey is engaged in a monumental federal court fight with President Donald Trump that threatens the law firm’s very existence, the Houston-based litigation powerhouse reported 2024 revenues and profits that are once again the envy of their competitors. The firm's revenues last year were down from its record-smashing numbers of 2023, but it was still Susman Godfrey's second-best year in its 44-year history.

April 30, 2025 Mark Curriden

Updated — Susman Godfrey Vows to Fight Trump Executive Order, Simultaneously Scores Win in Billion-Dollar 2020 Presidential Election Defamation Case

The Texas litigation powerhouse Susman Godfrey said Thursday morning that it will fight President Donald Trump’s executive order signed Wednesday that accuses the Houston-based law firm of “egregious conduct and conflicts of interest” and representing “clients that engage in conduct undermining critical American interests and priorities.” The president’s EO came the same day that a Delaware judge gave lawyers for Susman Godfrey and their client, Dominion Voting Systems, a huge court victory against Newsmax Media in a multibillion-dollar defamation lawsuit related to the 2020 presidential election. Last week, Susman Godfrey joined an amicus brief that accuses President Trump of illegally using executive orders to punish law firms who represent clients or causes that he opposes.

April 9, 2025 Mark Curriden

Nine Texas Litigation Firms Sign Amicus Brief in Opposition to Presidential EOs

Stating that their “abiding commitment to preserving the integrity of the American legal system leaves us no choice,” 504 law firms across the U.S. signed an amicus brief Friday supporting the corporate law firm Perkins Coie in its battle for survival against the Trump administration. Of those 504 law firms supporting Perkins Coie, only nine are based in Texas and not a single law firm with a corporate transactional practice signed the brief. The firms include Yetter Coleman, Susman Godfrey, Graves Dougherty, Nachawati Law Group, Aldous Law, Crain Brogdon and Waters Kraus.

April 4, 2025 Mark Curriden

Texas AG Sends Piggyback Demands to Law Firms on DEI Info

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton sent a two-page letter to 20 large corporate law firms — 13 with operations in Texas — seeking information about their diversity and inclusion initiatives related to their hiring and promotion efforts that Paxton alleges may have violated state and federal laws regarding discrimination.

April 3, 2025 Mark Curriden

UPDATED: Texas Lawyers Stay Silent on Trump’s Targeting More Law Firms

Even as two large corporate law firms filed constitutional lawsuits against President Donald Trump on Friday to stop his executive orders targeting law firms from taking effect, Texas lawyers — who love to brag that they, like everything else in Texas, are bigger and braver and never back away from a fight — have remained extraordinarily quiet. Out of nearly a thousand lawyers from bar associations, law schools and law firms that signed letters this week decrying the Trump administration's targeting of corporate law firms, only two attorneys and one organization were from Texas. The Texas Lawbook has an in-depth update on the White House's battle against corporate law firms, including mega-firm Skadden Arps' new settlement agreement with President Trump.

March 28, 2025 Mark Curriden

Texas Lawbook Online Forum: How Should Lawyers, Firms and GCs Respond to President Trump’s Challenges?

Large corporate law firms have faced unprecedented actions by a presidential administration during the past two weeks, including five presidential executive orders targeting five law firms, a presidential memorandum directing Attorney General Pam Bondi to “review conduct” by lawyers and firms who engage in “frivolous, unreasonable, and vexatious litigation” against the U.S. government and demand letters sent by the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission targeting 20 law firms — 13 of them operating in Texas — seeking their policies and activities regarding diversity and inclusion. The Texas Lawbook seeks your insight and commentary regarding how law firms and the legal profession should respond.

March 28, 2025 Mark Curriden

EEOC Targets 13 Law Firms Operating in Texas for DEI Initiatives

The new acting chair of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission has sent a 10-page letter to 20 different corporate law firms — 13 of them with operations in Texas, though no Texas-based law firms — demanding detailed information about their diversity, equity and inclusion efforts and decision making. The letters, which are addressed to the leaders of each of the law firms, demand that they “fully identify all clients that have diversity preferences or any demographic-related requirements for matters, including but not limited to race or sex requirements for the employees staffed on their matters.”

March 17, 2025 Mark Curriden