Future Forum: Guilt, Innocence, and the Death Penalty 
HOUSTON LAW
HOUSTON LAW
Three of the nation's largest law firms are in Houston. They have kept their awesome power, their pervasive influence, and their closed societies out of the public eye. Until now.
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Baker & Botts is now in the midst of a more-or-less orderly transfer of power from the men who arrived in the flush years of the late 1920s to those who belong to the postwar generation. (Only a handful of partners came in the 1930s.) Discreetly, they are fighting over the only things they consider worth fighting over: money, control, and the type of clients they will cultivate. Whatever the outcome, one thing is certain: the large clients like Pennzoil, who provide over a million dollars a year in fees, will continue to be taken care of.
Vinson Elkins: Jet-Set Superlawyers
VINSON ELKINS IS NOT ONLY the largest law firm in Texas: it is the third largest in the world and in reach of the top. If Baker & Botts is patterned after Wall Street practice, VE is the closest thing Houston has to the legendary Washington superlawyers. The analogy is not perfect because VE spends the overwhelming part of its time on very traditional types of legal business; but the rest of the time it is political to a degree that no other Texas firm can match.
The offices that sprawl across the 20th, 2lst, 22nd, and 25th floors of Houston's First City National Bank building (and parts of two other floors as well) are a surprisingly prosaic setting for the power that emanates from within. The reception area is an elevator lobby unsuccessfully disguised as a living room. Paintings of scenes from ancient Rome and antique cabinets containing finely-bound but unread classic law books line the walls, and the view in either direction is down long corridors oppressively reminiscent of federal office buildings, suffused with a pink light. There is an air of intense activity; young lawyers in white shirtsleeves and respectable ties dart briskly from one door to another, bearing sheafs of papers and intent expressions. In a random five-minute period one afternoon, 37 people passed in front of the reception desk.
Both the building and the law firm are a striking monument to the tenacity of one man, although others have improved upon his original plan. He was James Elkins, a county judge in Walker County, who came to Houston in 1917, allied himself with the young law firm of Vinson & Townes, and founded the City National Bank. The firm's fortunes were the bank's fortunes; they grew together. Judge Elkins had a winning combination, and he played it for all it was worth. He lived to be 93, but the legend of his strong will may outlast him by a century. Said a lawyer who knew him in his heyday: "There wasn't a man alive who could dominate anything Judge Elkins was in, except Judge Elkins."
He made all the decisions at both institutions for practically half a century, never bothering to get anyone else's approval. Lawyers work on Saturdays, he said, and a hundred VE attorneys attired in coat and tie duly trooped to their desks each Saturday morning until 1969, almost a decade after the other firms had made such appearances optional.
Lawyers wear hats, he said, and hats were worn. It is conceivable that by the mid-sixties, half the hats sold in Houston were purchased by Vinson Elkins lawyers. A young Kennedyesque associate, new to the firm, vowed he would be damned if he would wear a hat. One day as he was leaving, he chanced to encounter Judge Elkins in the elevator Granitic stares. Uncomfortable silence. Finally: "Young man, I see that you do not have a hat." Came the abashed and craven answer: "Sir, I did have a hat, but somebody stole it, and I'm on my way out right now to buy another one."
Vinson Elkins, unlike Baker & Botts, built its strength on local business. In the 1930s it was a "four-client firm": the Great Southern Life Insurance Company, Moody-Seagraves, the production end of United Gas Corporation, and Pure Oil Corporation. All but the last were headquartered in Houston. Judge Elkins saw another resource, however, and exploited it brilliantly. The local independent oil men had never catered to Baker & Botts; they always thought it was too close to the big oil companies and Eastern finance. The Judge, wearing his banker's hat as president of First National, gave them loans; VE in turn did their legal work. The firm prospered by carrying them on the cuff while they drilled dry holes and collecting when they finally hit. This neat little arrangement catapaulted VE into the big time.
For VE's future, however, the worm in the apple was Judge Elkins' embarrassing penchant for hiring the sons of clients and judges, young men whose legal abilities were not always readily apparent. His purpose was to gain what lawyers call "client access," and it worked for awhile: business boomed. But the firm became less and less able to handle that business properly. Enter, then, the second of VE's guiding lights, David Searls, whose influence grew as Elkins aged. Searls served only briefly as the official managing partner, but he was the dominant figure in the firm for over a decade, from 1960 until his death in October, 1972.
Searls, a nationally-known trial lawyer, recognized that the firm needed a transfusion of brainpower. He wrenched the hiring practices around to place a premium on merit. His efforts were rewarded in 1963 when VE swooped down on the University of Texas Law School and carried away practically all the top graduates of a class that is still remembered by professors as the finest in the school's history. It was an event that transformed VE and revolutionized the Houston legal scene. The new recruits set to work devising methods for winning others, and during the remainder of the decade their lavish recruiting program enjoyed success after success.
Searls gave an astonishing amount of authority to these younger men, particularly Harry Reasoner and Richard Keeton. Together they initiated most of the basic reforms that swept through the Big Three in the Sixties, reforms that included sharply increased salaries for new associates, a shortening of the time required to become a partner from ten or 12 years to six, and a wider system of participation to replace ironfisted one-man rule. VE developed a reputation as the most aware and enlightened firm in town.
Searls was genuinely beloved and widely mourned. Today his picture sits on the desk of many partners, a white-haired fatherly figure alongside snapshots of their wives and children. One can talk to Houston lawyers for weeks about their peers, past and present, without hearing an unflattering word about the man.
Since his death, there is a growing feeling that the firm has begun to slip a little. Control has shifted to A. Frank Smith, Marvin Collie, and of course John Connally. Although Connally has generally been regarded as a progressive force, his busy role as Presidential advisor and Republican politician has left him little time for day-to-day decision-making about VE's policies. As the official managing partner, Smith has increasingly set the tone. Those close to the firm perceive a definite reaction against "the liberals, long-hairs, and fancy dressers." Recruitment has changed, and less say is given to younger partners and associates.
The "45-year-old bracket"—men who for years felt voiceless as Searls passed them over to share his power with the younger men—dominate Smith's executive committee. (Smith himself is 58.) Rivalry between the two groups is subdued but obvious even to the outsider. Where it will lead is anybody's guess. Worried associates observe that the 45-year-old group built up a substantial body of resentment and discontent watching the younger generation enjoy fatter salaries and swifter promotions than they themselves had been privileged to receive at such an unseasoned age; deprived of their turn at power for so long, they are unlikely to relinquish it willingly. And they are still relatively young themselves.
Whatever problems Vinson Elkins may be having with its generation gap, however, nothing has interrupted the phenomenal growth of its already-high-quality clientele. The firm represents such corporate giants as Texas Eastern, Pan Am, Halliburton, and Occidental Petroleum (the last three, Connally is said to have brought in), as well as the extensive Cullen family interests. More are coming in every day, attracted from far beyond the borders of Texas by the former Treasury Secretary's reputation for thaumaturgy. "Everyone wants to hire him," smiles a VE partner, "because everyone wants to get acquainted with John Connally."
Fulbright Crooker: Texan to the Core
FULBRIGHT, CROOKER & JAWORSKI is the johnny-come-lately of the Big Three, a big gangling giant that seems as surprised as anyone else by its position as one of the nation's four largest firms. The Eastern pretensions of the other two are missing here: FC is Texan to the core. Aware that it lacks B&B's lofty tradition and VE's jet-set polish, it has stewed itself into a massive inferiority complex over the years. A lawyer at the other two who brags about his firm will simply take for granted that the listener considers it Number One; by contrast, a lawyer at PC is likely to say plaintively (as one did), "I hope you're going to be as fair to us as you are to the other two."
There is no question that Fulbright Crooker is a somewhat different genre: less sophisticated, less affected, more friendly, open, and down-home. It is much less secretive than the others. No one ever calls it stodgy. Says a former member: "Through the years, Fulbright Crooker has always wanted to hire the best, but only if they were Good Ole Boys." Asked for a capsule description of the Big Three, another Houston lawyer thought a moment and said, "Baker Botts plays golf; Vinson Elkins plays tennis; Fulbright Crooker hunts."
These differences provide fuel for one of the most popular (and catty) parlor games among Houston lawyers: making fun of Fulbright Crooker. "Their suits are shinier; mostly they wear Hong Kong silks," sniffs a VE wife. "They look a little bit corny, like they could wear a string tie to work." PC lawyers absorb this sort of thing with stoic indifference; but it hurts. They respond by redoubling their efforts to make a mark in various highly-visible civic and professional endeavors. It is no accident, for example, that PC always controls the Houston Junior Bar Association, nor that its senior partner, Leon Jaworski, won election as President of the American Bar Association. The firm has an unquenchable thirst to gain acceptance by its peers.
The most persistent criticisms of Fulbright Crooker involve its alleged ruthlessness and disregard for the customary rules governing conflict of interest. "They don't see a conflict of interest ...ever," charges one of their competitors. More than any other of the Big Six, Fulbright Crooker has been touched by scandal. The Haden will contest, the Andrau airport, and the first Sharpstown scandal (in 1957) are oft-cited examples. Similar accusations float like wraiths around the Houston bar. "There is a constant feeling of impropriety about the firm," remarks a middle-aged solo practitioner. "Conflict of interest is not a term often heard around there."
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