{"id":155381,"date":"2026-06-24T13:37:29","date_gmt":"2026-06-24T21:37:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/2026\/06\/24\/winstons-texas-two-step-more-than-a-dozen-lone-star-partners-have-headed-for-the-exits\/"},"modified":"2026-06-24T13:37:29","modified_gmt":"2026-06-24T21:37:29","slug":"winstons-texas-two-step-more-than-a-dozen-lone-star-partners-have-headed-for-the-exits","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/2026\/06\/24\/winstons-texas-two-step-more-than-a-dozen-lone-star-partners-have-headed-for-the-exits\/","title":{"rendered":"Winston\u2019s Texas Two-Step: More Than A Dozen Lone Star Partners Have Headed For The Exits"},"content":{"rendered":"

Winston & Strawn spent the better part of the last year building toward a splashy transatlantic merger<\/a> with U.K. firm Taylor Wessing. The partner vote came back overwhelmingly in favor<\/a>, and the combination officially closed earlier this month<\/a>, birthing the newly minted Winston Taylor on June 1. The combined firm boasts more than 1,400 lawyers and north of $1.75 billion in revenue. Congratulations are presumably in order.<\/p>\n

And yet, somewhere between the partner vote and the champagne, a significant number of Texas partners seem to have decided this particular party wasn\u2019t for them.<\/p>\n

Law.com has tracked<\/a> more than a dozen departures from Winston\u2019s Lone Star State offices since February, with a particular concentration in Dallas. The firm\u2019s co-managing partner for Dallas, Brett Johnson, offered the standard-issue merger-era reassurance \u2014 attrition happens, most partners voted yes, exciting times ahead \u2014 but the volume here is unusual enough to warrant more than a shrug.<\/p>\n

The departures started in earnest in February, when a nine-partner litigation group led by prominent Dallas trial lawyer Tom Melsheimer jumped to King & Spalding<\/a>. That group alone would have been a significant hit for any firm\u2019s Texas litigation bench. But King & Spalding didn\u2019t stop there. Over the following months, additional Winston partners in Dallas followed, including LeElle Slifer, who had served as global co-chair of Winston\u2019s general litigation practice, along with several colleagues. The firm also picked up a pair of finance and restructuring partners from Winston in April. <\/p>\n

It wasn\u2019t just King & Spalding doing the shopping. Latham & Watkins \u2014 which is opening a Dallas office \u2014 nabbed two Dallas litigators in February. Paul Hastings picked up two<\/a> capital markets and public company advisory partners earlier this month. In Houston, Bracewell snagged two energy partners including Kevin Brophy, who co-chaired Winston\u2019s energy and infrastructure practice; Yetter Coleman, Clifford Chance, and Latham all added Houston litigation talent as well.<\/p>\n

The official line from the firm is measured. \u201cLike most firms, we experience attrition \u2014 often at the end of our fiscal year,\u201d Johnson said. \u201cThe overwhelming majority of our partners in Texas voted in favor of the combination.\u201d<\/p>\n

A former Winston partner, speaking anonymously to Law.com, put it plainly: the volume is unusual, even if there\u2019s no single clean explanation tying it all to the deal. \u201cIt\u2019s not directly related to the merger,\u201d they said, \u201cjust perhaps related to the sense it made people evaluate where they saw things in their careers.\u201d That\u2019s a pretty honest account of how these things work, a merger doesn\u2019t always cause the departures but it can creates the occasion for them.<\/p>\n

Winston Taylor is quick to point out it\u2019s not just watching partners leave. The firm has added lateral partners in Dallas in recent months, including IP litigators from Baker Botts and Sidley Austin. Johnson says more IP hiring is forthcoming and that the firm is continuing to build in California, New York, and Washington, D.C. as well.<\/p>\n

So the picture isn\u2019t one of freefall; it\u2019s more complicated than that. Winston Taylor is now a transatlantic giant, but its Texas footprint is a question the market is currently answering in real time.<\/p>\n

\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Kathryn Rubino is a Senior Editor at Above the Law, host of\u00a0The Jabot podcast<\/a>, and co-host of\u00a0Thinking Like A Lawyer<\/a>. AtL tipsters are the best, so please connect with her. Feel free to email\u00a0her<\/a>\u00a0with any tips, questions, or comments and follow her on Twitter\u00a0@Kathryn1<\/a>\u00a0or Bluesky\u00a0@Kathryn1<\/a><\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

The post Winston\u2019s Texas Two-Step: More Than A Dozen Lone Star Partners Have Headed For The Exits<\/a> appeared first on Above the Law<\/a>.<\/p>\n

<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

\"\"
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t(Image via Shutterstock)\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Winston & Strawn spent the better part of the last year building toward a splashy transatlantic merger<\/a> with U.K. firm Taylor Wessing. The partner vote came back overwhelmingly in favor<\/a>, and the combination officially closed earlier this month<\/a>, birthing the newly minted Winston Taylor on June 1. The combined firm boasts more than 1,400 lawyers and north of $1.75 billion in revenue. Congratulations are presumably in order.<\/p>\n

And yet, somewhere between the partner vote and the champagne, a significant number of Texas partners seem to have decided this particular party wasn\u2019t for them.<\/p>\n

Law.com has tracked<\/a> more than a dozen departures from Winston\u2019s Lone Star State offices since February, with a particular concentration in Dallas. The firm\u2019s co-managing partner for Dallas, Brett Johnson, offered the standard-issue merger-era reassurance \u2014 attrition happens, most partners voted yes, exciting times ahead \u2014 but the volume here is unusual enough to warrant more than a shrug.<\/p>\n

The departures started in earnest in February, when a nine-partner litigation group led by prominent Dallas trial lawyer Tom Melsheimer jumped to King & Spalding<\/a>. That group alone would have been a significant hit for any firm\u2019s Texas litigation bench. But King & Spalding didn\u2019t stop there. Over the following months, additional Winston partners in Dallas followed, including LeElle Slifer, who had served as global co-chair of Winston\u2019s general litigation practice, along with several colleagues. The firm also picked up a pair of finance and restructuring partners from Winston in April. <\/p>\n

It wasn\u2019t just King & Spalding doing the shopping. Latham & Watkins \u2014 which is opening a Dallas office \u2014 nabbed two Dallas litigators in February. Paul Hastings picked up two<\/a> capital markets and public company advisory partners earlier this month. In Houston, Bracewell snagged two energy partners including Kevin Brophy, who co-chaired Winston\u2019s energy and infrastructure practice; Yetter Coleman, Clifford Chance, and Latham all added Houston litigation talent as well.<\/p>\n

The official line from the firm is measured. \u201cLike most firms, we experience attrition \u2014 often at the end of our fiscal year,\u201d Johnson said. \u201cThe overwhelming majority of our partners in Texas voted in favor of the combination.\u201d<\/p>\n

A former Winston partner, speaking anonymously to Law.com, put it plainly: the volume is unusual, even if there\u2019s no single clean explanation tying it all to the deal. \u201cIt\u2019s not directly related to the merger,\u201d they said, \u201cjust perhaps related to the sense it made people evaluate where they saw things in their careers.\u201d That\u2019s a pretty honest account of how these things work, a merger doesn\u2019t always cause the departures but it can creates the occasion for them.<\/p>\n

Winston Taylor is quick to point out it\u2019s not just watching partners leave. The firm has added lateral partners in Dallas in recent months, including IP litigators from Baker Botts and Sidley Austin. Johnson says more IP hiring is forthcoming and that the firm is continuing to build in California, New York, and Washington, D.C. as well.<\/p>\n

So the picture isn\u2019t one of freefall; it\u2019s more complicated than that. Winston Taylor is now a transatlantic giant, but its Texas footprint is a question the market is currently answering in real time.<\/p>\n

\n

\"\"Kathryn Rubino is a Senior Editor at Above the Law, host of\u00a0The Jabot podcast<\/a>, and co-host of\u00a0Thinking Like A Lawyer<\/a>. AtL tipsters are the best, so please connect with her. Feel free to email\u00a0her<\/a>\u00a0with any tips, questions, or comments and follow her on Twitter\u00a0@Kathryn1<\/a>\u00a0or Bluesky\u00a0@Kathryn1<\/a><\/em><\/strong><\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Winston & Strawn spent the better part of the last year building toward a splashy transatlantic merger with U.K. firm Taylor Wessing. The partner vote came back overwhelmingly in favor, and the combination officially closed earlier this month, birthing the newly minted Winston Taylor on June 1. The combined firm boasts more than 1,400 lawyers […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":155382,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[16],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-155381","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-above_the_law"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/xira.com\/p\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/IMG_5243-1-scaled-e1623338814705-620x568-4bG3o5.jpg?fit=620%2C568&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/155381","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=155381"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/155381\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/155382"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=155381"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=155381"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=155381"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}