2020 Q3 Newsletter: Still Bullish on Texas

This pandemic has been anything but predictable, cutting deeply into some industries and communities while leaving others relatively unscathed. And it has been easy to get bogged down in the day-to-day, week-to-week. 

But we were surprised when we took a big step back to look at the partner move numbers, not just for the past few months, but for this year, last year and the year before.  

After this quarter, 2020 is only trailing 2019 by less than 5% in the number of partner moves.

As you may recall, Texas firms actually had a phenomenal start to this year with Q1 far outpacing the same time in 2019 and 2018. May and July expectedly saw sharp declines following increased spread of COVID-19 throughout the state. But August and September rallied, once again outpacing the previous two years.

Judging by these numbers, this quarter’s two robust office openings in Houston (Frost Brown Todd) and Fort Worth (Alston Bird) and the increase in hiring among new-to-Texas firms, it seems both native and non-native firms are showing their commitment to Texas and their faith in our ability to weather the storm. Or storms, as the case may be.

We look forward to the coming quarter and are hopeful Texas practices and industries will remain resilient and forward-looking.