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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: Commercial Litigation in Texas
Texas boasts a phenomenal amount of litigation talent – 22 firms receive special mention here because of the quality of their lawyers. Vinson & Elkins LLP is a national litigation firm with five US offices – three of which are in Texas. The Texan heavyweight’s litigation section has been described as “a force to be reckoned with” on the national and international stage, with contributors noting its handling of complex cases, especially in the energy sector.
Editorial: Competition in Texas
Previously high levels of merger and acquisition activity coupled with a strong local economy ensure that there’s no shortage of work for the Texan competition lawyer. We identify 24 individuals from 13 firms; all are recognised as among the finest practitioners in the state. They counsel and litigate on behalf of clients on wide-ranging issues such as the laws concerning cartels, monopolisation, and mergers and acquisitions.
Editorial: Construction in Texas
The 19 lawyers and 13 firms featured in this chapter have proven expertise in representing owners, contractors and subcontractors in both contentious and non-contentious matters. Each individual should be regarded as a leader in the field of construction law.
Editorial: Corporate Governance in Texas
Boards of directors at public companies often require advice from their outside counsel on sensitive matters relating to corporate disclosure, governance and policy issues, as well as dealing with new laws, regulations, stock exchange rules and governance principles. The lawyers in this chapter have proven track records in providing this advice, and will counsel corporations on issues arising in routine operations and in extraordinary transactions.
Editorial: Corporate Immigration in Texas
Texas is home to some of the United States’ leading corporate immigration lawyers. A number of factors contribute to this: Texas sits conveniently between the east and west coasts, while Houston is home to some of the world’s largest petrochemical and biomedical companies and Dallas is a centre for defence and IT.
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.