DALLAS LAWYERS TEAMING UP

Walk into the Belo Mansion on Ross Avenue, headquarters of the Dallas Bar Association, and you may hear as much talk about big business and corporate mergers as you’ll hear about November’s judicial elections. Lawyers say the Dallas legal community is changing, and the likely result will be the emergence of law firms the size of Houston’s legal giants, several of which have more than 300 staff attorneys.

The reason for the legal boom: the influx of large national and multinational corporations into Dallas. It’s also bringing to Dallas national law firms such as Cleveland’s Jones, Day, Rea-vis and Pogue (offices in Washington, Columbus and Los Angeles), which opened an office here to serve Diamond Shamrock, a client whose headquarters had moved to Dallas. To establish a local base quickly, Jones, Day merged with Meyers, Miller, Middleton, Weiner and Warren.

“You go to the Bar headquarters every day, and you hear a new rumor,” says one Belo regular.

One such recent rumor that became fact June 1 was the partial merger of Crutcher, Hull, Ramsey and Jordan, a firm of 23 attorneys, with Hughes and Hill, the firm of former Texas Attorney General John Hill. Three partners and about half the associates in Crutcher, Hull, Ramsey and Jordan have joined Hughes and Hill, giving Hughes and Hill about 70 attorneys.

Darrell Jordan, who is joining Hughes and Hill and is president of the 4,000-member Dallas Bar Association, says he believes that such growth is what’s in store for Dallas civil law firms. “Everybody believes that what’s happening here in the Eighties is much like what has gone on in business – the consolidation of firms, with the big ones getting bigger and the little ones having to really specialize or lose out,” Jordan says. “Everybody’s jockeying for position.”

Jordan says that, in the future, corporations may be solicited as clients with modern marketing techniques. “I think you’ll see slick brochures and other things that are basically advertising techniques,” he says. “The marketing of legal services is going to be a big, big thing in the future.”