© 2018 The Texas Lawbook.
By Mark Curriden
(May 17) – Katten Muchin Rosenman leaders wanted to open a Dallas office, but they realized most Texas corporate lawyers knew very little about the 600-lawyer Chicago firm. To build a successful operation in North Texas, they needed hometown credibility in Dallas.
At the same time, leaders at Katten met separately with Block, who recently placed lawyers at Baker Botts, Vinson & Elkins, Gibson Dunn and a handful of other prominent firms in Dallas.
“I told them the one lawyer they should start with was Mark Solomon,” Block said. “They surprised me by telling me they already were.”
Katten was convinced and made the duo a team to lead their launch efforts in Dallas and the firm is reaping early results.
Since opening the Dallas office three months ago, Solomon and Block have convinced 20 lawyers to join Katten in North Texas, including former U.S. District Chief Judge Jorge Solis and four other prominent lawyers last week.
Both make it clear that they are only getting started.
“Randy and I are actively talking to four or five other groups about moving to the firm,” Solomon told The Texas Lawbook. “It is a great time to grow a law firm in Texas. Katten is making a huge investment in Texas.
“The key for us is to make sure we invest our resources wisely,” said Solomon, who was on the lateral recruiting shortlist of nearly a dozen prominent corporate law firms. “Katten has a great funds practice and Dallas is a city with a lot of hedge funds and private equity funds of all sizes. That is a clear practice for us to grow.”
Katten hopes to have 50 lawyers working in the Dallas office in a year. The firm leases the 37th floor of the Comerica Building in downtown Dallas right now and plans to take possession of the 36th floor later this year. The firm also has 11 attorneys in Houston and four in Austin.
Solomon knows there will be challenges.
“The competition for legal talent is very intense right now,” he said. “That’s where we rely on Randy’s expertise and talent.”
Even so, Solomon said he and his team are already witnessing tangible benefits from joining Katten.
“We are cross-selling like crazy with other Katten offices,” he said. “We knew it would be good, but we didn’t expect it would be so great.”
Legal industry analysts say law firms must differentiate their operations in a corporate law market with so many established competitors and a growing number of newcomers if they are to experience success.
“Having really strong and talented lawyers is merely the price of attendance,” said Chicago legal consultant Kent Zimmerman of the Zeughauser Group. “Law firms must offer something extra, something unique, something that attracts top-notch lawyers to leave one firm to join another.”
For Katten, the something extra is the unique working relationship between Solomon and Block. The pair met in 2010 when Block pitched a few clients to Andrews Kurth’s corporate practice, but it is their love of baseball that made them friends.
Solomon is a life-long New York Yankees fan. Block has loved the Texas Rangers since he was a boy growing up in Fort Worth. The pair have an ongoing debate: who was the best catcher in baseball? Solomon picks Thurman Munson. Block counters with Pudge Rodriguez. Both secretly know it was actually Johnny Bench.
Credit: Mark Solomon
Solomon’s devotion to Munson was more than just as a fan. The great Yankee catcher actually lived with Solomon’s family while he was a teenager.
“Munson took Mark to many games at Yankee Stadium and even took him to see the movie Jaws when it first hit theaters,” Block said. “They were very close.”
Solomon was born and raised in New York City, but said he’s “a naturalized Texan.” His mother was a model for the Ford Agency in Chicago while his father was in real estate.
“There were no lawyers in my immediate family, but I always had in the back of my mind that I would be a lawyer,” he said. “I had no idea what it even meant to be a lawyer.”
As part of the student observer program at the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, Solomon met Ivan Irwin, a partner at Shank, Irwin & Conant who represented the Hunt oil family. The firm hired Solomon upon graduating from George Washington University School of Law and moved him to Dallas.
“Although the firm dissolved four years later, I never really looked back and never planned to move out of Texas,” Solomon said.
Solomon, who is 58, was a partner at Arter Hadden’s Dallas office for 12 years, and for a time the firm’s national managing partner. For 15 years, he was a partner at Andrews Kurth, where he also served as the managing partner of AK’s Dallas office.
Since 2012, Solomon has advised companies and private equity firms involved in dozens of corporate deals valued in the tens of billions of dollars, according to research by The Texas Lawbook.
Block’s mother was a physician and his dad was a finance professor at Texas Christian University. There were no lawyers in his family either.
“My favorite TV show was L.A. Law,” he said. “Arnie Becker and those other characters seemed to be having a great time. It turns out L.A. Law was pretty inaccurate at depicting the life of a lawyer.”
A 1998 graduate of the SMU Dedman School of Law, Block practiced law at Winstead for several years. But in 2000, he suffered an eye injury that significantly impacted his practice.
“I have great difficulty with reading, and that is pretty much what a lawyer does all day,” said Block, who is 45. “I had to face the music and reboot my entire career.”
As an adjunct professor at SMU Dedman Law School, Block helped students get jobs at law firms across North Texas.
“I found out that law firms actually pay people to do that,” said Block, who started his business in 2005. “I had zero idea what I was doing, which turned out to be a good thing. I’ve been able to go about recruiting in a very different way than others by relying on relationships, not cold calls.”
In fact, it was relationships that led Katten and Solomon together. Katten chairman Roger Furey was on Arter Hadden’s executive committee when Solomon led the firm’s Dallas operation.
The pair met a few months ago and compared notes.
“It was quickly apparent that it was a great fit,” Solomon said.
Block’s experience in his early meetings with Katten leaders was similar.
“Law firm leaders can be a bit overbearing, but the Katten folks are ridiculously nice people,” Block said. “They asked all the right questions and they wanted real answers.”
Solomon and Block developed a strategy that seems simple and obvious, but it is not so easy to achieve.
“We decided to target partners in their 40s who have solid books of business and dynamic personalities but not overbearing egos,” Block said. “The goal was to find people who want to practice together for the next 15 years and make this the final move of their career.
“Katten made it clear to us that they are not seeking to buy books of business,” he said. “The firm wants to build a team that is together for a generation.”
© 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.