An illustration of the Lady Justice statue with the flags of Texas and California.
Illustration/Illustration by Kyle Arnold
Texas leaders champion the number of California corporations — Toyota, Chevron, Tesla, Charles Schwab and McKesson, to name a few — that have relocated to Texas in recent years.
Often overlooked is the story of the Southern California corporate law firms — the SoCal gang of five — that followed those companies and reaped enormous financial and professional successes since they arrived.
Separately and combined, the Texas offices of these five Los Angeles-founded law firms — Gibson Dunn, Latham & Watkins, O’Melveny & Myers, Paul Hastings and Sheppard Mullin — scored record revenues and profits in 2025, just as they did in 2024. All five achieved remarkable headcount growth last year. All five saw their Texas revenue hit nine digits last year. And all five say that 2026 is off to an even better start.
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A decade ago, Latham, Gibson Dunn and Paul Hastings combined had fewer than 150 attorneys in Texas, and their lawyers generated a total of $210.5 million, according to Texas Lawbook 50 data.
Only one of the firms, Latham, was in the Lawbook top 20 in 2016. O’Melveny and Sheppard Mullin had not even opened Texas outposts yet.
Exclusive new Texas Lawbook 50 data shows that the five firms combined employed the full-time equivalent of nearly 650 attorneys in the state in 2025 — the result of aggressive lateral hiring from competitor law firms in Texas and recruiting newbie attorneys from Texas law schools. Two of the firms, Gibson Dunn and Latham, now rank in the Lawbook 50 top 10 by revenue. All five are among the top 32 firms.
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Combined, they generated more than $1.26 billion in revenue in 2025 — $240 million more than the year before, a 22% increase.
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Gibson Dunn
Fueled by leading huge M&A transactions and equally as large courtroom victories for Texas clients, Gibson Dunn scored its best year since opening an office in Dallas in 1984.
The Los Angeles-founded corporate law firm added 13 attorneys in its Dallas and Houston offices in 2025, topping 200 lawyers for the first time and jumping into the top 10 Texas law firms by headcount.
Lawbook 50 data shows that Gibson Dunn’s Texas lawyers grew revenue by 17.3% to $421 million.
“We get a lot of really big deals for the size of our transactional practice,” said Krista Hanvey, co-managing partner of Gibson Dunn’s Dallas office.
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Texas Lawbook’s exclusive Corporate Deal Tracker database shows that Gibson Dunn lawyers in Houston and Dallas led a dozen billion-dollar-plus M&A transactions in 2025, including Dallas partner Rob Little’s representation of SpaceX in its $17 billion purchase of spectrum licenses with EchoStar.
The firm’s litigation team also scored big wins in 2025. Dallas partner Trey Cox led a Gibson Dunn litigation team representing Energy Transfer in a $660 million jury verdict against Greenpeace in North Dakota.
“The litigation practice in Texas is incredibly busy and getting busier,” Cox said. “Business courts are picking up cases, and they are disposing of cases quickly and effectively.”
Latham & Watkins
Latham, which has offices in Austin, Houston and Dallas office, generated $388 million in revenue in Texas in 2025 — a 22% increase over 2024 and up from $105 million in 2016.
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“We are seeing green lights across the board,” said Nick Dhesi, managing partner of Latham’s Houston office. “Private equity is driving a lot. The capital markets have roared back. There is so much activity in traditional natural resources combined with power generation.”
Latham’s Houston and Austin lawyers led 14 billion-dollar M&A transactions, according to CDT data.
“We have big ambitions for Texas and Dallas,” Dhesi said. “The scale of what we are achieving across the market is far beyond what we imagined.”
Paul Hastings
In 2012, Paul Hastings joined the wave of out-of-state law firms that burst into Texas following the Great Recession by opening an outpost in Houston. It opened a Dallas office in 2023 by hiring high-profile Weil Gotshal litigator Paul Genender.
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In 2024 and 2025, Paul Hastings went on a hiring spree, adding about 70 lawyers. The result: The firm saw its Texas revenue jump from $56.7 million in 2023 to $200.5 million in 2025.
“Our Texas platform continues to grow and we are gaining significant market share as we add premier talent and expand work on important mandates with new and existing clients,” Genender said. “Demand is up. Our corporate and litigation teams are very busy, and we added depth to both benches in 2025 and expect that to continue this year.”
“We will continue to strategically expand in areas where we can add premier talent that creates opportunity for exponential growth on our platform,” he said.
O’Melveny & Myers
No law firm in the Lawbook 50 grew its 2025 revenue by a larger percentage than O’Melveny.
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Since it opened its Austin and Dallas offices in 2021, the firm has steadily grown its lawyer headcount.
“2025 was an extremely successful year,” said Kim Williams, the firm’s Dallas managing partner. “We were able to draw on the depth and cohesion of the O’Melveny platform. Everyone is very busy.”
The Texas lawyers for O’Melveny generated $133.3 million in revenue in 2025 — a 41.3% increase from the prior year.
Sheppard Mullin
Sheppard Mullin, which opened its Dallas office in 2018, barely snuck into the Lawbook 50 rankings in 2023 with Texas revenue at $65 million.
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The Los Angeles-founded firm has experienced back-to-back hugely successful years, growing revenue from its Texas operations by 48% and 24.6%, respectively.
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The firm opened its Houston office in 2022.
Lawbook 50 data shows that Sheppard has seen its lawyer headcount grow to 92 lawyers in Dallas and Houston. And those lawyers have been incredibly busy. Its Texas lawyers generated $119.6 million in 2025.
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The Texas Lawbook is an online news publication focused on business law in Texas. For a longer version of this story, visit texaslawbook.net.