DALLAS - Hutchison Boyle Brooks & Fisher, have combined their municipal practices to help the firms compete in a more regulated and complex environment.
In the move, which is effective today, two Dallas partners at Hutchison Boyle, Ray Hutchison and Ben Brooks, have joined Vinson & Elkins, bringing the firm a long list of prestigious clients from Dallas to Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport. In addition, Leroy Grawunder, who worked at the Hutchison firm, has joined Vinson & Elkins.
The three bond attorneys will work in conjunction with four other bond attorneys in Vinson & Elkins' Dallas office and with about 25 other bond attorneys for Vinson & Elkins in Texas. The firm's Texas offices include Austin and a Houston headquarters.
"It adds balance to our bond practice...and it will put us in a more efficient position to use other resources in securities, tax, and bankruptcy law," said Monty Humble, a partner in the Dallas office of Vinson & Elkins.
The merged practices also should help Vinson & Elkins secure its top place as a Texas bond law firm.
In 1994, Vinson & Elkins was the number one bond counsel in the state, working on 99 issues totaling $3.2 billion for a market share of 31.4%, according to Securities Data Co. figures. Hutchison Boyle Brooks & Fisher ranked sixth in 1994 and worked on 60 deals totaling $717 million for a market share of 7%.
That compared with McCall Parkhurst & Horton, which ranked second and worked on 214 deals totaling $3 billion for a market share of 29.4% in 1994, and Fulbright & Jaworski, which ranked third and worked on 182 issues totaling $2.6 billion for a market share of 24.9% last year.
Ray Hutchison said he decided to combine his law firm with Vinson & Elkins because bond counsels need to work for larger firms to be competitive and provide the expertise needed as secondary disclosure rules are phased in and regulations follow the derivatives crisis in California and elsewhere.
"The bond practice is getting increasingly complex, and each time you have an Orange County the regulators come out of the wall and they continue to impose new burdens," Hutchison said. "It's a simple reality that you have to have more legal expertise to take care of that and it is easier in the context of a larger law firm."
Hutchison said the combined firm can benefit from having experts on SEC requirements, experienced litigators, and others with specialized knowledge of the issues facing the municipal market.
As of today, he said the Hutchison Boyle Brooks & Fisher practice will be discontinued under that name. The remaining seven of 10 attorneys at the firm either will go into private practice or look for jobs elsewhere because their jobs overlapped with staff in place at Vinson & Elkins. One of the two other name partners, John Boyle, is setting up his own practice in Dallas; the other, Rick Fisher, will set up a practice in Austin.
Hutchison Boyle, which was founded by Hutchison about 25 years ago, has long been visible in Texas. Hutchison, 62, is a former state representative and gubernatorial candidate. He is married to U.S. Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison. Ray Hutchison has practiced bond law for a wide variety of clients for 31 years.
Brooks has practiced bond law for about 20 years, and Grawunder for about 10 years.
Their clients have been concentrated in north and west Texas, while Vinson & Elkins has been focused more in central and south Texas. The combination "adds more balance to our practice," Humble said.
Neither Humble nor Hutchison would disclose the financial terms of the agreement, but both said the firms had talked about combining their municipal finance departments for years.
The addition of the three Hutchison bond counsels coincides with the addition at the Dallas office of Vinson & Elkins of six well-known corporate bond attorneys from the Johnson & Wortley firm. In December, Johnson & Wortley voted to disband, and attorneys have been relocating to other firms.
