Willkie Farr & Gallagher has added a trio of private equity transactional partners in Dallas from Akin Gump and A&O Shearman, as the US firm continues its buildout in Texas’s hot legal market.
Jesse Betts and Jessica Hammons have joined from Akin’s 100-lawyer Dallas office, while Nathan Meredith has moved over from A&O Shearman’s roughly 30-strong Dallas team.
The hires take Willkie’s Dallas partner count to 15 alongside eight associates according to its website. The firm opened the office last May with a trio of partners recruited from Haynes and Boone and four existing Willkie partners to extend its private equity, M&A, finance and asset management practices to both energy and non-energy sector clients.
Holt Foster, who joined from Sidley Austin last year as managing partner in Dallas, said the incoming partners continued the office’s momentum.
“Many Willkie partners in Dallas, including myself, worked with Jesse, Jessica and Nathan previously and know them to be premier transactional practitioners who are trusted advisors to their clients,” Foster said. “They have deep market knowledge and experience that will complement our M&A and private equity capabilities in Texas and across the firm.”
Foster previously overlapped with the trio at legacy energy specialist Thompson & Knight, which folded into Holland & Knight in 2021.
The move to Willkie also reunites them with real estate partners John Bain and Wesley Smith, who joined the Dallas office in March from Akin. Other recent arrivals include PE partner duo Lawrence Hall – himself a Thompson & Knight alumnus – and Jon Platt from Baker Botts.
Betts acts for public and private companies, as well as private equity funds and their portfolio companies, and private equity-backed management teams in corporate and securities matters. Most of his practice is in energy-related work, though he also has significant M&A experience in non-energy fields such as manufacturing and medical devices.
Meanwhile Hammons advises on corporate and securities transactions with an emphasis in upstream and midstream energy, manufacturing and financial services. She brings experience with private equity investments, public and private M&A and divestitures, public and private securities offerings, SEC reporting and corporate governance, Willkie said.
Meredith focuses on M&A and private equity investments, particularly acquisitions and divestitures of oil and gas assets and companies and private equity funding arrangements. He also represents publicly and privately held companies and private equity funds on joint ventures, portfolio company investments and commercial transactions.
The trio have joined Willkie amid a period of significant growth for the firm across major US markets including New York, Chicago and California. Bloomberg reported in February Willkie had added more than 100 lawyers in each of those locations since 2020, growth that had helped it to jump nearly 20 places to 30th on the Am Law 200 between 2019 and 2023. No other firm managed such a leap without a merger.
Willkie has continued its hiring spree this year, bringing on litigator Doug Emhoff, former Vice President Kamala Harris’s husband, in Los Angeles and a three-partner white-collar investigations team from Mayer Brown across California and Washington DC.
It also hired a trio of partners from Jenner & Block in New York and Washington DC in February led by Jenner’s former litigation co-chair Lee Wolosky, who joined Willkie as chair of its new national security and cross-border litigation practice.
Wolosky told Bloomberg the firm is now “focusing significantly” on Texas, where it has around 60 lawyers across Dallas and the Houston office it opened in 2014. The state’s thriving economy, business-friendly environment and growing legal market have proved a draw for Big Law, with firms including Kirkland & Ellis, Latham & Watkins, King & Spalding and Quinn Emanuel opening offices there in the past few years.
Willkie also boosted its Houston bench earlier this month with the hire of Blake Winburne from Orrick as co-chair of its energy and infrastructure practice.
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