Winston & Strawn completed its long-anticipated transatlantic merger with UK firm Taylor Wessing, officially launching the combined Winston Taylor on June 1.
The newly merged entity boasts more than 1,400 lawyers and north of $1.75 billion in revenue, making it a significant transatlantic force.
Despite an overwhelming partner vote in favour of the combination, more than a dozen Texas partners have departed since February.
The exits have been concentrated in Dallas, with competitors actively recruiting from Winston’s Lone Star State offices throughout the merger process.
The departures began in earnest in February, when a nine-partner litigation group led by prominent Dallas trial lawyer Tom Melsheimer moved to King & Spalding.
King & Spalding continued its recruitment drive, also picking up LeElle Slifer, who had served as global co-chair of Winston’s general litigation practice, along with several colleagues.
The firm further added a pair of finance and restructuring partners from Winston’s Dallas office in April, deepening its haul from the departing firm.
Winston was not only losing partners to King & Spalding, as Latham & Watkins, Paul Hastings, Bracewell, Yetter Coleman, and Clifford Chance all extracted talent from Texas offices.
In Houston, Bracewell secured two energy partners including Kevin Brophy, who co-chaired Winston’s energy and infrastructure practice, representing a notable loss in a key sector.
Winston Taylor’s co-managing partner for Dallas, Brett Johnson, acknowledged the departures but placed them within a broader context of normal business cycles.
“Like most firms, we experience attrition — often at the end of our fiscal year,” Johnson said, adding that “the overwhelming majority of our partners in Texas voted in favour of the combination.”
A former Winston partner, speaking anonymously, offered a more candid assessment of why the merger may have indirectly accelerated departures across the state.
“It’s not directly related to the merger,” they said, “just perhaps related to the sense it made people evaluate where they saw things in their careers.”
That assessment reflects a well-understood dynamic in major law firm combinations, where a merger creates an occasion for reflection even when it is not the direct cause of exits.
Winston Taylor has moved to counter the narrative of decline by adding lateral IP litigators from Baker Botts and Sidley Austin in Dallas, with Johnson signalling further IP hiring is planned.
The firm says it is continuing to build its presence in California, New York, and Washington, D.C., framing the Texas situation as one chapter in a larger growth story.
The picture emerging is not one of freefall but of a transatlantic giant still calibrating its American regional strategy amid significant market scrutiny.