Deep roots.
Focused on what’s next.
For a century, we’ve helped shape Texas. Now we’re helping our clients shape what comes next.
Our First Century →The care and attention of a boutique, with the depth of a regional powerhouse.
Since 1927, companies, families, and public entities across Texas have trusted us with their most important legal work. We try cases, close transactions, and handle the regulatory work in between. Many of our clients have been with the firm for decades.
Clients come to us with the problems their business turns on: a lease or contract in dispute, a deal that has to close, a permit or rate case before a state agency, land and water they need to protect. They want lawyers who know their industry, tell them the truth about their position, and stay with them for the long run.
Partner-level attention
We give partner-level attention, and clients develop relationships directly with the attorneys doing their work. You always know who to call.
Client-focused approach
For decades, our motto has been “We’re in it together.” In the courtroom or at the closing table, that means we take on your problem as our own and tell you what we would do if the decision were ours.
Business-minded
We care about the industries our clients work in and know the law that governs them. The right result is not always the hardest fight. When it is, you have trial lawyers from a firm that has been trying these cases since 1927.
Practices that work together
Our trial, transactional, and regulatory lawyers work together on the same clients and the same matters. The lawyer drafting your agreement knows how it would be tried, and the one trying your case knows how the deal was built.
Our Firm’s First Century
Judge Powell hangs a shingle on Congress Avenue.
Ben Powell steps down from the Commission of Appeals and opens a practice in the Littlefield Building at Sixth and Congress, with young John Rauhut at his side. From the first month, the work is oil and gas, before the Railroad Commission and in the Texas courts.
Water, power, and the making of the LCRA.
Senator Alvin Wirtz comes to Austin in 1934, and the firm becomes Powell, Wirtz, Rauhut & Gideon. Wirtz writes the legislation creating the Lower Colorado River Authority and serves as its general counsel, the start of a water and power practice that never left.
The firm’s counsel reaches the capital.
Wirtz serves as U.S. Undersecretary of the Interior, overseeing dams as large as Grand Coulee, and remains the advisor Lyndon Johnson trusts most. In 1948 he leads the canvass fight that certifies Johnson’s 87-vote Senate victory.
A rebuild carried by new names.
After Wirtz’s death in 1951, the rebuild falls to Bob McGinnis’s generation, and Thomas Reavley joins the letterhead after his term as Texas Secretary of State. Judge Powell keeps mentoring the young lawyers nearly to the end of his life.
The name that would last fifty years.
Lloyd Lochridge arrives from the Rio Grande Valley in 1959; Congressman Joe Kilgore comes home from Washington and joins in 1965. McGinnis, Lochridge & Kilgore carries one of the densest oil and gas dockets before the Texas Supreme Court.
Both sides of the docket, statewide.
Lloyd Lochridge serves as President of the State Bar of Texas. Bob McGinnis leads Prudhoe Bay producers through a two-year arbitration over ownership of the largest oil field in North America, and the panel awards his clients everything they sought.
A second generation follows the first.
Pat Lochridge, Campbell McGinnis, Shawn St. Clair, and Dean Kilgore each follow a father into the firm. Lloyd Lochridge wins the Guerra family’s fight against Clinton Manges at trial, and again in the Texas Supreme Court.
The firm follows its energy clients.
A Houston office opens, built around the oil and gas docket. The firm helps found what becomes Volunteer Legal Services of Central Texas and adds a plaintiff’s practice alongside its defense work.
Leadership passes, the stakes get bigger.
Pat Lochridge becomes managing partner in 2000 and steers the firm through a decade that produces three Top 100 verdicts. In 2013 the name catches up with what everyone already says: McGinnis Lochridge.
One firm, across every region of Texas.
Under Doug Dodds the firm opens Dallas in 2018 and adds Decatur, and for a time McAllen. Today the firm has four offices: Austin, Houston, Dallas, and Decatur.
The same practice, one hundred years on.
Oil and gas, water, and electric power walked through the door in the firm’s first decade, and clients still bring them to us today. The next hundred years begin the way the first did: know the law, and know what to do next.
Still counsel to the people and companies building Texas.
A century in, the work ahead looks like the work behind us: cases to try, deals to close, and clients who need a lawyer who knows their business. Let’s talk about where we go from here.
Practices that grew up with Texas.
Litigation
We understand that when clients need legal assistance, the goal is to resolve the issues favorably and efficiently, minimizing any negative effects on the client's business and life.
↗Oil & Gas
We represent clients throughout the petroleum industry within Texas and across the country.
↗Corporate & Tax
Our corporate attorneys represent individuals, private and public companies and non-profits, ranging from emerging businesses to multinational corporations.
↗Environmental and Water
Our attorneys help clients with land use, environmental and water matters throughout the state of Texas.
↗Electric Energy
McGinnis Lochridge attorneys have been involved in developing, navigating, and restructuring the electric energy industry in Texas for more than 75 years.
↗Labor & Employment
McGinnis Lochridge lawyers provide legal representation and counsel to employers of all sizes, both private and public.
↗Bankruptcy and Restructuring
We guide clients through alternatives to bankruptcy, work with distressed borrowers, and represent lenders in finding strategic solutions in and out of bankruptcy.
↗Wealth Preservation and Estate Planning
Our Wealth Preservation and Estate Planning Group represents clients regarding estate planning, probate, guardianship, tax-exempt organizations, charitable giving and federal tax matters.
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Four offices. One Texas firm.
Austin, TX 78703
Houston, TX 77002
Dallas, TX 75201
Decatur, TX 76234