Fennemore Craig is officially packing its boots and heading to Texas. The Am Law 200 firm announced a merger with San Antonio labor & employment boutique Schmoyer Reinhard, bringing all 11 of the boutique’s attorneys into the fold and boosting Fennemore’s office tally to 23.
The move marks the latest step in Fennemore’s growth strategy. CEO James Goodnow said the firm’s expansion spurt made one thing painfully clear: their labor and employment practice wasn’t keeping pace.
“We’ve had success in growth, but as we’ve done that, we realized that there were some practice areas that we needed to fortify,” Goodnow explained, noting that while Fennemore already has strong L&E talent, “we didn’t see the labor and employment bench growing at the same clip” as the rest of the firm.
Enter San Antonio’s labor & employment firm, Schmoyer Reinhard.
Not only are Shannon Schmoyer and Christine Reinhard bringing their specialized expertise, but they’re also bringing a client roster stuffed with national corporations.
“The majority of our client base is large, nationwide corporations, and we’ve just been super, super fortunate,” Schmoyer said, clearly aware that in Biglaw, nothing says “match made in heaven” quite like a stacked client list.
Reinhard highlighted a different advantage for her team: joining a firm with the tech horsepower to push forward on innovation.
“With technology, the advent of AI and being able to do that ethically, responsibly in the way we should, that’s what’s exciting,” she said. “That’s not something that you can necessarily do as a small firm — at least not easily.”
Translation: AI is great, but it costs money. Fennemore has money. Sold.
The merger also reflects a deliberate strategic move into Texas — a state that has become the hottest legal market in the country for firms trying to plant flags, rack up revenue, and maybe get a decent plate of brisket along the way.
“Texas has been at the top of our potential expansion markets for some time now,” Goodnow said. “And you look within Texas and you see that San Antonio, in fact, is one of the fastest growing cities. And if you look even deeper than that, you see that San Antonio doesn’t have the same level of Am Law 200 firms in it, so it’s not as saturated as a Dallas or a Houston.”
In other words: ripe for the picking.
With this move, Fennemore continues its transformation from regional mainstay to national player, and if Texas is any indication, the firm has no plans to slow down.
Kathryn Rubino is a Senior Editor at Above the Law, host of The Jabot podcast, and co-host of Thinking Like A Lawyer. AtL tipsters are the best, so please connect with her. Feel free to email her with any tips, questions, or comments and follow her on Twitter @Kathryn1 or Mastodon @[email protected].