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| Baker Botts LLP |
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Overview:
Baker Botts is an international law firm recognized for our creative approach to the legal and business issues facing our clients. The work we do is often groundbreaking.
With approximately 750 lawyers and a worldwide network of offices, Baker Botts works with our clients on a wide range of matters. Our approach to the law practice is collaborative, with lawyers functioning as integrated teams to bring the most appropriate response to client needs.
Since 1840, Baker Botts has been highly regarded for our integrity, our work ethic, the quality of our legal advice, and our people. |
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History:
Baker Botts has a long and distinguished tradition of service to clients in Texas and around the world. The firm traces its history to the earliest days of Texas, when founding partner Peter Gray was admitted to the bar of the Republic of Texas in January of 1840, just three years after the city of Houston was founded. In 1874, Mr. Gray left the firm, by then called Gray, Botts & Baker, when he was appointed to the Supreme Court of Texas, and after his departure, his two partners, Colonel W.B. Botts and Judge James A. Baker, changed the firm name to Baker & Botts. The name continued to change slightly throughout the decades until 2000, when the official name became Baker Botts L.L.P.
In the 19th century, Texas was largely an agricultural economy relying primarily on cotton, timber, rice and sugar cane. Baker Botts represented many of the largest business interests and many of the most influential individuals in the state, among them the Allen brothers, real estate developers who founded the city of Houston; cotton broker and merchant William Marsh Rice, "the richest man in Texas"; the Imperial Sugar Company; and many of the state's largest timber and paper companies.
The railroads that soon crisscrossed the country have been called "the Internet of the 19th century," and Baker Botts represented the railroad and banking interests of E.H. Harriman in Texas and the South and Southwest, including acting as primary counsel in those regions for the Southern Pacific and Union Pacific Railroads. Robert Lovett, a name partner of what was Baker, Botts & Lovett, left the firm in 1909 to become general counsel and later chairman of the board of both the Union Pacific and Southern Pacific Railroads.
At the turn of the 19th to the 20th centuries, several events took place that catapulted the firm to national prominence. First, the great Galveston hurricane of 1900 killed 6,000 people and wiped out what was at that time the largest city and port in Texas. Virtually all commerce moved inland 50 miles and resettled in Houston, which quickly replaced Galveston as the largest city in Texas.
Second, oil was discovered in 1901 near Houston, creating dozens of oil companies and oil service companies that relied on Baker Botts as their legal mainstay. These included Humble Oil (the predecessor of Exxon), Gulf Oil (later merged into Chevron), Texas Co. (later Texaco), Howard Hughes' drill bit company (now Baker Hughes), and many, many more.
Third, William Marsh Rice, who as an old man had moved to New York City and lived alone with his butler, was found dead in his Madison Avenue apartment. A will was filed for probate that left his entire estate to a New York lawyer to administer as a secret trust. Captain James Baker (the second of five with that name to be partners in the firm, all lineal descendants of the first) took the first train to New York, and after an investigation into the circumstances of Mr. Rice's death, determined that he did not die of natural causes but was murdered with chloroform, that the New York will was a forgery, and that the butler did it! The butler turned state's evidence and the lawyer was convicted of murder, with the help of Captain Baker serving as special prosecutor. The case garnered worldwide publicity for the firm and for Captain Baker. He served as the first chairman of the board of trustees of Rice University, founded with Mr. Rice's saved fortune, and there has been a Baker Botts partner on that board virtually ever since.
Editions of the Martindale Hubbell legal directory show that the firm was one of the largest in the U.S. in the early 1900s, even though it was based in Houston, which was at the time a small, relatively unknown town.
A succession of Baker Botts lawyers have carried on the impressive tradition of the early founders. Edwin B. Parker, the firm's first managing partner, was in charge of manufacturing priorities at the War Industries Board for President Wilson during World War I and later was president of the firm client Houston Lighting & Power (HL&P) and Umpire of the Mixed Claims Commission, a forerunner of the World Court. Mr. Parker headed the firm's original New York office, which opened in 1920, and is credited by some with inventing the modern American law firm, an institution run like a business, in which the top graduates of law schools are hired on salary until they prove themselves and are admitted as partners, rather than as occasional hourly contract workers. Funds from Mr. Parker's estate were used to found the Parker School of Foreign and Comparative Law at Columbia University.
Ralph B. Feagin founded the Texas Law Review while he was in law school, and became Edwin Parker's protégé and successor as managing partner. Mr Feagin served as secretary of the American Red Cross and counsel to Electric Bond and Share Company (EBASCO), the giant electric utility holding company that was one of the primary targets of the Public Utility Holding Company Act of 1935. Mr. Feagin led the firm's effort in the spin-out of United Gas (later Entex) from EBASCO and in taking HL&P public.
Under Judge Parker and Mr. Feagin, Baker Botts hired its first female lawyers in the 1920s.
The growing role of federal government regulation generated by the New Deal expanded the role of lawyers generally in business, and particularly in the energy business. Baker Botts found itself increasingly active in matters involving the federal regulatory scene – SEC, FPC, FTC and many others.
Recognizing the growing importance of Latin America, the firm opened a Mexico City office in the 1940s, which lasted into the 1970s, when the office reorganized as a separate Mexican law firm, now Santamarina y Steta, one of the largest in Mexico. Baker Botts still retains close ties with that firm as well as other firms and lawyers throughout Latin America.
After World War II, another managing partner, Dillon Anderson, was President Eisenhower's National Security Advisor. Mr. Anderson was on the board of directors of Westinghouse, Federated Department Stores, the Carnegie Foundation, the Brookings Institution and the American Law Institute, while at the same time writing several popular novels and serving on the editorial board of the Atlantic Monthly.
The Washington, D.C., office opened in the early 1970s, at first mainly as an outpost to deal with the federal regulatory issues of the firm's Texas clients, but soon blossomed into a full-service office in its own right. The Washington office has counted among its partners an SEC chairman, an SEC commissioner, an SEC general counsel, an Assistant Secretary of the Treasury, and former Secretary of the Treasury and Secretary of State James A. Baker, III, who served in senior government positions under three U.S. presidents. The firm's Washington office again received national attention when the outstanding group of trial lawyers at Miller, Cassidy, Larrocca & Lewin merged into Baker Botts at the beginning of 2001, expanding dramatically the size of that office and its capabilities.
The office in Austin, the Texas capital, was established in the late 1970s, formalizing what had been an every-other-year adventure (the Texas Legislature only meets in odd-numbered years), and it soon grew into a full-service office. The Austin office is currently home to two fine jurists who came to Baker Botts after retiring from the bench, Joe Greenhill, whose stellar law career has included 25 years on the Supreme Court of Texas, the last 10 of those as Chief Justice, and Tom Phillips, who retired as Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of Texas following seventeen years of service. Relying on their incomparable depth of experience with the court system, both lawyers provide counsel on cases in the Texas appellate courts and Texas Supreme Court.
The Dallas office opened in 1985 with 10 lawyers. Located in the heart of one of the most vibrant economic centers in the country, Dallas has the fastest-growing Baker Botts practice. Now with more than 160 lawyers, the Dallas office provides legal services to public entities, Fortune 500 companies and many other major clients throughout the world.
In 1992, the New York office reopened. Early on, the New York team was joined by a group of outstanding lawyers who represented TCI, which eventually became Liberty Media. The New York office continues to be the center of the firm's vibrant media practice. In 1997, Baker Botts merged with the distinguished law firm of Brumbaugh, Graves, Donohue & Raymond, a venerable old-line intellectual property firm with roots dating to the 1920s. The merger lent even greater strength to the firm's widely respected intellectual property department.
Baker Botts' involvement in Russia dates back to the 1970s when the firm advised a major energy client on a large natural gas project in the former Soviet Union. Baker Botts opened a Moscow office in 1993 to meet growing client demands for legal services within Russia. As a result of the firm's long history in the jurisdiction, our lawyers have a detailed understanding and extensive experience of doing business in the exciting and rapidly changing economy of the Russian Federation.
In 1998, the London office opened to enhance the firm's service to clients doing business in the United Kingdom, Europe and internationally. The London office now boasts the largest dedicated energy practice in the city.
Given the firm's pre-eminent position in the energy industry, the hydrocarbon rich Middle East is a natural location to find Baker Botts lawyers. In 2005, the firm expanded its presence in the region by opening an office in Dubai to complement our existing office in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. In 2009, our Abu Dhabi office opened broadening our geographic footprint in the region and expanding our legal resources for clients.
China continues to dominate Asia's meteoric rise, and Baker Botts has built a strong and diverse practice that delivers sophisticated and time-sensitive expertise on resource intensive transactions involving China. Baker Botts has represented clients involved in major energy projects in Asia over the course of three decades.
In 2005, the firm decided to cement our practice in the region by establishing an office in Hong Kong. Hong Kong was the firm's first office in Asia, and it serves as a regional hub, supporting our work throughout the region. In 2007, we expanded our Chinese presence by opening an office in Beijing. Baker Botts Beijing maintains close relationships with major PRC government authorities, ministries and departments at both the national and regional level providing clients with the most up-to-date and authoritative advice.
Today, Baker Botts has approximately 750 lawyers in thirteen cities around the globe, but one set of themes has characterized it from its earliest days, themes originally struck by Judge Gray, enunciated and enforced by Captain Baker, and carried forward by hundreds of its lawyers since – the highest ethical and professional standards, the greatest dedication to its clients' needs, and the most collegial association among its lawyers and staff. |
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