'Tremendous Uptick': Lateral Partner Movement Surged in Texas in 2022

January 13, 2023

Texas recruiter Lee Allbritton found in an analysis of the Texas market that lateral partner hiring was up 31% in 2022, compared with 2021, with litigation, intellectual property and energy fueling the demand.

Lateral partner moves in Texas were up 31% in 2022 when compared with 2021, which also was a record year, and Houston was by far the busiest market for partners switching firms, according to an analysis by search consultant Lee Allbritton, a principal in Amicus Search Group.

Allbritton, who is based in Austin, found that 351 Texas partners moved firms during 2022, compared with 267 in 2021, with many of the shifts in the litigation, intellectual property and energy practices.

The movement was widespread, with two-thirds of the 103 Am Law 200 firms with Texas offices making at least one lateral partner hire, led by McDermott Will & Emery, O’Melveny & Myers and Holland & Knight, with each hiring 10 or more in Texas in 2022.

“What I found most surprising was the sheer volume of movement in the market and how much of it was centered on litigation and the energy practice in Houston. We all thought that 2022 was the year of the corporate lawyer, but the movement suggests otherwise. This was an opportunity for controversy practices and energy practices,” Allbritton said.

The other surprising finding was the “tremendous uptick in activity” in the Houston market, he said, noting that he tracked 170 lateral partner hires in the Space City in 2022, compared with 100 the prior year.

Previously, Allbritton noted, “Austin and Dallas had taken center stage for a couple years.”

Allbritton based his research on law firm press releases that announced Texas lateral partner hires in 2022 at Am Law 200 firms with Texas offices as well as at smaller Texas firms not in that ranking. He looked at hiring at more than 200 firms.

Allbritton’s findings support the perception that hiring was strong in Texas in 2022, despite economic worries in the industry due to inflation and the specter of a recession.

Homegrown Texas firms continue to be targets of out-of-state firms beefing up their Texas offices. Allbritton found in his analysis that Baker Botts lost 21 partners in 2022, Gray Reed & McGraw lost 11, and Winstead lost nine. Also, other firms with Texas roots also saw partners leave, including Norton Rose Fulbright and Foley & Lardner, which each lost seven partners in Texas in 2022, and Locke Lord, Bracewell, and Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld, each losing five.

The national firms that hired aggressively in Texas in 2022 include McDermott, which added 14 lateral partners in Texas, including 11 IP litigators from Baker Botts; O’Melveny, which hired 13 Texas partners including five corporate and tax partners from Locke Lord in Dallas and three corporate partners from Willkie Farr & Gallagher in Houston; and Holland & Knight, which tacked on 10 partners including an energy transactions group from Eversheds Sutherland and two partners from Reed Smith in Houston.

Three other national firms added nine lateral partners in Texas: Sheppard Mullin, which launched its Houston office with partners from various firms; Nelson Mullins Riley & Scarborough, which added Dallas partners in a large acquisition of Bowman and Brooke products liability lawyers in a number of cities; and Winston & Strawn, which added partners from various firms.

However, some large homegrown Texas firms also posted large Texas lateral partner hiring numbers in 2022, including Thompson Coe Cousins & Irons, which hired 12, and Jackson Walker, which hired 10.

Hiring was 50% higher in litigation and IP in 2022 in Texas than the year before, and included the acquisition of several legacy trial boutiques, according to the analysis. After slowing in the early months of the pandemic, movement of lawyers working in the energy sector surged in 2022, alongside hiring in Houston, which rose by 63%.

According to the analysis, 170 partners made lateral moves in Houston in 2022, 113 in Dallas, 50 in Austin, eight in San Antonio, six in Fort Worth, and fewer in smaller markets. By practice, 110 were in litigation, 52 in corporate, 37 in IP, 27 in energy, and fewer in other practices.

The entry of new out-of-state firms into the Texas market slowed in 2022, even as many of those firms added more offices in the Lone Star State, according to the analysis. Firms that broke into the Texas market in 2022 included Nelson Mullins, which opened in Dallas, and global firm Kennedys, which launched in Houston.