Womble Bond Dickinson, a 1,000-lawyer firm with co-headquarters in London and North Carolina, quietly opened an office in Houston early this month.
Womble Bond has six lawyers – four partners and two associates – in its Houston outpost, but firm leaders say they plan to grow quickly, including new lateral hires within the next few weeks.
“We expect to add partners and associates quickly,” Jeffrey Whittle, who joined Womble Bond earlier this month as managing partner of its Houston office, told The Texas Lawbook in an exclusive interview.
“We think there is a place, a real opportunity, for a firm like Womble Bond Dickinson in the Houston market,” says Whittle, a highly respected intellectual property lawyer and former partner at Hogan Lovells and Bracewell. “We expect to be 20 to 30 attorneys pretty quickly and we hope to be 35 to 50 lawyers over a short period.”
Womble Bond, he says, focuses on businesses in the middle and upper-middle market space that don’t want to pay ultra high hourly rates and seek value-adding legal advisors.
“I’ve been across the table from Womble Bond Dickinson lawyers on matters and I’ve always been impressed with the quality of work the firm’s lawyers have done,” Whittle says.
Two former Reed Smith lawyers in Houston have joined Womble Bond as partners. They are:
• Paul Turner, a corporate transactional and securities lawyer at Reed Smith, who started at the firm in January; and
• Joshua Davis, who joined Womble Bond last September. He’s an IP lawyer previously with Reed Smith and Baker Botts before that.
Womble Bond partner Liz LeVan Riley, who specializes in education law, practices in Raleigh, N.C., but she plans to have an office in Houston, too.
“Womble Bond Dickinson is located in many of the key innovation centers throughout the US and the UK and Houston has long been on our radar due to its rapid growth and its importance to innovation,” Womble Bond Chair and CEO Betty Temple said in a written statement.
“We are excited to have opened a Houston office to expand our practice in the global energy, advanced manufacturing, technology and life sciences sectors and we have assembled a terrific group of partners to help us succeed in our ambition.”
With revenues exceeding $410 million in 2017, Womble Bond has 27 offices worldwide, including 19 in the U.S. The firm is the result of a combination of Womble Carlyle and Bond Dickinson two years ago.
In an article published in October, The Texas Lawbook identified seven national or regional law firms that were seriously looking at opening an outpost in Texas. Lathrop Gage and Womble Bond were two of the seven. Lathrop opened a Dallas office two weeks ago.
Womble Bond has leased office space on the 31st floor of 811 Main Street, which is also home to the Houston offices of Latham & Watkins and Gibson Dunn.
Whittle says that the firm plans to focus on expanding its technology and intellectual property practice, corporate transactions, commercial litigation and education law.