What's Cooking At Baker Botts?

There's good news and bad news: a new lateral partner, and layoffs of some staff.

In our recent look at Texas law firms, the firm of Baker Botts placed sixth out of six surveyed firms. But there are some things cooking down there that could cause the dough to rise.

Perhaps taking advantage of the recent turmoil in the Texas offices of Weil Gotshal, Baker Botts just nabbed a lateral from WGM: Nicolas Barzoukas, an IP litigator in Houston. We don’t yet know whether other attorneys are making the same move, but it’s possible. Neither Baker Botts nor Weil responded to our requests for comment, but we do note that Barzoukas’s bio is gone from Weil’s website. (We’ve posted a cached version at the end of this story.)

So that’s the good news about Baker Botts. Now, on to the bad….

Some legal secretaries at Baker Botts just got burned. We’re not sure of the exact numbers, but we believe the number of affected individuals to be 20 or more firm-wide. It appears that at least five secretaries have been laid off in Dallas alone, and other offices, such as Houston, are reported to be making cuts as well.

We understand that the goal is to go from four attorneys per administrative assistant to at least five. We don’t know what severance arrangements, if any, have been made. If Baker Botts gets back to us, we will update this story with the firm’s response.

UPDATE (9/30/2013): Here is the Baker Botts press release announcing Barzoukas’s arrival.

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If you have information to add, about Baker Botts or any other major firm, just email us or text us (646-820-8477). If you’d like to see Nicolas Barzoukas’s bio, which is impressive, flip to the next page.

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