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Like this article, The Texas Lawbook will unveil dozens of additional law firm and lawyer rankings in the coming weeks tied to the Corporate Deal Tracker’s historic deals database that goes back to January 2018.
After today, the only way to get them is to sign up for the Sunday CDT newsletter.
Since 2018, Texas lawyers from 44 law firms have been the lead legal advisors to buyers, sellers or targets in 554 mergers, acquisitions and joint ventures with price tags of $1 billion or higher.
Sixteen law firms in Texas have led or co-led 10 or more deals valued in the billions. Texas lawyers for six law firms — including Baker Botts, Sidley Austin, Gibson Dunn and Latham & Watkins — led 50 or more such M&A transactions during the past seven years and nine months.
Two law firms — Kirkland & Ellis and Vinson & Elkins — have had their Texas lawyers lead or co-lead 100 or more deals valued at $1 billion or more, according to the Corporate Deal Tracker, The Texas Lawbook’s exclusive database of M&A transactions involving Texas lawyers.
The CDT has documented 9,481 individual deals handled by Texas attorneys between Jan. 1, 2018, and Sept. 30, 2025. Of those, 6,926 were led or co-led by lawyers from Texas — 554 of them were valued at $1 billion or more.
Eight of the 554 billion-dollar transactions were led by Texas general counsel and the in-house legal teams but involved no outside lawyers. For example, the University of Texas at San Antonio’s $3.5 billion acquisition of UT Health, which closed in September, was led by UTSA Chief Legal Officer Hailey Mullican. And in 2023, Chevron Associate GC Siva Adams led the energy giant’s $60 billion acquisition of Hess Corp. without any outside Texas legal advisors.
Nine of the 44 law firms whose lawyers have led billion-dollar M&A are headquartered in Texas, including Baker Botts, Bell Nunnally, Bracewell, Jackson Walker, Locke Lord, Munck Wilson, Porter Hedges, Thompson & Knight and Vinson & Elkins.
Two of those firms — Locke Lord and Thompson & Knight — have merged with non-Texas firms. Locke, which merged in January to become Troutman Pepper Locke, led nine billion-dollar-plus M&A transactions with a combined value of $15.7 billion. Thompson & Knight, which led four M&A deals valued in the billions between 2018 and 2025, merged in 2021 with Holland & Knight, which led three transactions with price tags of $1 billion or higher. The seven deals combined totaled $13.7 billion.
CDT data shows that 14 law firms in Texas each led one billion M&A deal.
Bell Nunnally’s sole billion-dollar transaction is a biggie: It represented Carrollton-based JBB Advanced Technologies in its $12.25 billion sale to Tronic Ventures in 2024. And McDermott, Will & Emery also led only one such megadeal when it advised MailChimp co-founder Dan Kurzius in its 2021 sale to Intuit.
Thirteen corporate law firms — King & Spalding (7), O’Melveny (4), Willkie Farr (4), Jackson Walker (3), Norton Rose Fulbright (3), Winston & Strawn (3), Clifford Chance (2), Paul Hastings (2), McGuireWoods (2) and Morgan Lewis (2) — led between two and seven billion-dollar transactions.
Six firms — Jones Day (10), Hunton Andrews Kurth (11), Weil Gotshal (12), Skadden (14), Haynes Boone (14) and White & Case (14) — were in the double digits.
Four other firms — A&O Shearman (21), Bracewell (25), Akin (26) and Simpson Thacher (32) ranked in the top 10.
CDT Top Five
Ranked sixth with 51 billion-dollar deals, Baker Botts represented Houston-based Cabot Oil & Gas in its 2021 sale to Cimarex Energy for $17 billion. In 2018, Baker Botts’ Texas lawyers advised EnLink Midstream in its $13 billion restructuring. And this year, the firm represented Intrepid Partners in a $3 billion deal involving Crescent Energy.
With 58 billion-dollar transactions, Sidley Austin ranks fifth. The lawyers for Sidley in Dallas and Houston advised Exelon in its $16.4 billion sale in 2021 to Constellation Energy and San Antonio-based NuStar Energy in its $7.3 billion sale to Sunoco in 2024. A lawyer in the firm’s Dallas office also led Univision Holdings in its 2021 acquisition of Grupo Televisa for $4.8 billion.
Gibson Dunn’s Texas offices led the fourth most billion-dollar-plus transactions between 2018 and Q3 2025. Among the 70 deals with 10 and 11 digits, the firm led the largest transaction during the time period, Pioneer Natural Resources’ $64.5 billion sale to ExxonMobil. Texas lawyers for Gibson Dunn’s have led two huge deals in 2025, including advising the private equity firm Lazard on its $26.6 billion sale of Calpine Corporation to Constellation Energy and representing SpaceX in its $17 billion acquisition of EchoStar.
The CDT data ranks Latham third with 95 M&A deals led by Texas lawyers between 2018 and Q3 2025. Latham’s Houston lawyers in 2023 represented Magellan Midstream in its $18.8 billion sale to ONEOK and Occidental in its $12 billion purchase of CrownRock, also in 2023. Texas lawyers for the firm also led Schlumberger’s $7.7 billion acquisition of ChampionX Corp. in 2024.
The largest transaction for Latham by deal value occurred in 2018, when it advised Energy Transfer Equity in the acquisition of Energy Transfer Partners for $62 billion.
The firm on the other side of that transaction, representing ETP, was Vinson & Elkins, the Houston-based corporate firm that led 124 M&A transactions, ranking second over the past seven years.
In 2019, V&E lawyers were the lead legal advisors for Anadarko Petroleum in its $33 billion sale to Chevron and, in 2024, in Endeavor Energy Resources’ $26 billion sale to Diamondback Energy. Earlier this year, V&E represented Sunoco in its $9.1 billion purchase of Parkland Corp.
No. 1: Kirkland
Ranked number one is Kirkland & Ellis. Kirkland’s Texas lawyers led or co-led 153 billion-dollar-plus M&A transactions since 2018.
Two Houston lawyers for Kirkland were the lead advisors for Zurich-based Amcor in its $37 billion acquisition of manufacturer Berry Global Group. In 2022, Kirkland’s Texas lawyers represented Brookfield Infrastructure in its $30 billion joint venture with Intel Corp.
In 2025, Texas attorneys for Kirkland have led Constellation Energy’s $26.6 billion purchase of Calpine, Blackstone’s $25 billion acquisition of software and data firm PPL, and the Canadian Pension Plan’s $22.2 billion deal with Sempra Infrastructure Partners.
In 2026, The Texas Lawbook will add M&A transactions from 2015 and 2016 to the CDT database.
The CDT database is available to Lawbook premium subscribers for searching by deal announcement date, deal value, business sector, buyers, sellers, third parties, law firms and lawyers involved.
Jeff Schnick contributed to this report.