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Texas In Brief
Texas In Brief
Texas identifies 578 of the state’s finest practitioners in 24 practice areas. Although a proportion of these are based in the large metropolitan areas of Dallas, Houston and Austin, the publication also recognises the important role a number of other cities play in the state’s vibrant business and legal market. The US Census Bureau estimated that the population of Texas had reached 23,507,783 in July 2006, ranking it second behind California, and with a total area of 268,581 square miles Texas is the second largest state after Alaska.The Lone Star State’s geographical centrality between the East and West coasts makes it an attractive place to do business and Fortune Magazine’s 2007 ranking of the United States’ largest corporations by revenue reveals that 56 of the Fortune 500 are headquartered in the state, just one short of New York’s total.
Aviation, aerospace and manufacturing all loom large while the state also boasts a rich array of hi-tech companies – the Austin suburb of Round Rock is home to Dell and many computing and semiconductor companies have operations in the surrounding area, known as the ‘Silicon Hills’. Health care is another prominent sector in the state, driven in part by the prominence of Houston’s Texas Medical Center, the largest medical district in the world with 45 medical institutions, 13 of which are hospitals and two of which are specialised patient facilities. As one would expect, however, the greatest focus is on the energy sector as well as oil and gas equipment and services. According to the Energy Information Administration, a statistical agency of the US Department of Energy, Texas leads the US in fossil fuel reserves, boasting almost one quarter of the crude oil and three-tenths of the natural gas reserves of the US. The state’s refineries can process more than 4.6 million barrels of crude a day and companies such as Exxon Mobil, ConocoPhillips, Valero Energy, Marathon Oil, Halliburton and Plains All American Pipeline are all headquartered in the state.
These industries, and the companies associated with them, consequently provide a great deal of work for the firms and individuals featured on the following pages. Our research identifies a wide array of legal talent within the state, with boutique and specialist outfits rubbing shoulders with some of the legal profession’s most recognised firms. The publication also features some of the industry’s most respected practitioners in over twenty practice areas. Using each chapter as a lens, we are able to highlight certain firms that stand out from the pack based on the number of partners we identify.
Editorial
Editorial: Texas
Editorial: Arbitration in Texas
Commercial arbitration is now established as a popular mechanism for dispute resolution in the United States, across a range of industries. This chapter identifies 21 individuals who are leaders in arbitral practice, whether as neutral, panellist or counsel, and who have experience of both domestic and international disputes.
Editorial: Aviation in Texas
According to Fortune magazine’s 2007 ranking of America’s largest corporations by revenue, four of the country’s largest companies within the aviation industry are headquartered in Texas – AMR, Continental Airlines, Southwest Airlines and Express Jet Holdings. Geneva based Airports Council International, a trade group for the world’s commercial aviation industry, lists Dallas Fort Worth International Airport as the sixth busiest airport in the world with Houston coming in at No. 18. This, coupled with strong industry links to Texas, ensures that a number of the practice area’s leading lights practice in the state. Nineteen of these are included in this chapter, the majority of whom specialise in litigation and contentious liability matters arising out of major accidents.
Editorial: Banking in Texas
Our research identifies a raft of talented banking lawyers, many of whom are associated with Texas’s historic and thriving oil and gas industry. Respondents often recommended Vinson & Elkins LLP as an “excellent banking practice”.
Editorial: Business Crime in Texas
Texas’s business crime bar has had a particularly high profile ever since light was thrown upon the goingson at Enron Corp in 2001. The state fields 16 practitioners of the highest reputation in white-collar defence work. An obvious breeding ground for such extraordinary ability is the United States Department of Justice, with many of the individuals below having served as US attorney or assistant attorney before entering private practice. The inclusion of a large number of individuals from specialised firms highlights the presence litigation boutiques carry within the market.
Editorial: Capital Markets in Texas
With an astonishing seven practitioners featuring in this chapter, Baker Botts LLP is “a real powerhouse” for capital markets.
Profiled Firms
Firm Profiles: Texas
Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld LLP
Akin Gump’s Texan roots stretch back to its inception in 1945, when Agents Richard Gump and Robert Strauss left the FBI to open Gump & Strauss law firm in Dallas.
Andrews Kurth LLP
Andrews Kurth LLP has grown from a small Houston-based partnership formed in 1902 under the name Andrews & Ball, to an international firm with over 400 lawyers in nine offices.
Baker Botts LLP
Baker Botts LLP is Texan through and through. It can trace its history to the earliest days of Texas, when founding partner Peter Gray was admitted to the bar of the Republic of Texas in 1840, just three years after the city of Houston was founded. The firm became Baker & Botts in 1874, and retained that name until 2000 when it took on the title it has today.
Bracewell & Giuliani LLP
The firm we know today as Bracewell & Giuliani LLP was founded in 1945 in Houston, under the name of Bracewell & Tunks. Today the firm has approximately 400 lawyers practising in 10 offices across the US, the UK and Kazakhstan, hitting the headlines in 2005 with the opening of a New York office, headed by the former New York City Mayor, Rudolph Giuliani.
Fulbright & Jaworski LLP
Fulbright & Jaworski LLP is an international law firm with an enviable position in its home market.
Focus On Corporate Counsel
Corporate Counsel Q&A: Texas
Texas Corporate Counsel: Michael Nichols
Senior vice president, general counsel and corporate secretary, Sysco Corporation
Sysco is based in Houston and provides food and related products and services to approximately 390,000 restaurants, health care and educational facilities, lodging establishments and other customers. Sysco’s operations, supported by 47,500 associates, are located throughout the United States and Canada and include broadline companies, specialty produce and custom-cut meat operations, Asian cuisine foodservice distributors, hotel supply operations, and chain restaurant distribution subsidiaries that serve both domestic and international locations.