US firm O’Melveny & Myers has hired a team of restructuring and litigation lawyers from Norton Rose Fulbright to help launch its Dallas office, the firm’s second Texas office opening in less than a month after debuting in Austin in early June.

The incoming team includes the former head of Norton Rose Fulbright’s global and US restructuring and insolvency practice Louis Strubeck and its former regional head of litigation Scott Drake. Joining them are trial lawyer Douglas Wabner and restructuring and litigation lawyer Gregory Wilkes. All four arrive as partners, with Strubeck and Wilkes joining the restructuring practice, Drake the bankruptcy litigation practice and Wabner the product liability and mass torts practice.

Bradley Butwin, O’Melveny’s chair, said: “Today we’re reaffirming what we said [earlier this] month: O’Melveny is committed to expanding our platform in Texas to better serve our clients’ needs… Lou, Scott, Doug, and Greg share our vision for O’Melveny’s Texas platform, and their arrival is a key step toward realising that vision.”

The quartet have practiced together for more than 15 years, bringing with them significant experience serving clients and handling high-profile matters in Texas and nationwide. Strubeck’s practice focuses on a range of insolvency issues, advising major banks and institutional lenders, private equity funds and others on large restructuring processes, often in areas such as energy, manufacturing, life sciences and infrastructure. 

Drake, meantime, is a trial lawyer focusing on prosecuting and defending claims related to bankruptcy disputes, class actions and other high-stakes commercial matters, particularly in the energy, healthcare, manufacturing, retail, financial services and telecoms sectors. Wabner is also a trial lawyer, focused on products liability and class action defence with particular experience in cases involving medical and surgical devices, consumer products, motor vehicles and industrial manufacturing. 

Wilkes’ practice focuses on advising corporate debtors, secured and unsecured creditor groups and investors in distressed companies for restructurings and litigation-related matters.

Mark Samuels, O’Melveny’s vice chair, said: “[The quartet] bring national reputations for excellence in their respective fields and will deepen our capabilities in restructuring as well as in life sciences litigation – areas where O’Melveny is widely considered best-in-class.”

O’Melveny launched in Austin earlier in June with the arrival of another quartet of lawyers, this time from Thompson & Knight, including Thompson’s former Austin office head Phillip Oldham. Other firms looking to the Texan capital include Kirkland & Ellis, which announced this week that it’s set to add an intellectual property litigation practice to its recently-launched office in the city, and Silicon Valley firm Gunderson Dettmer Stough Villeneuve Franklin & Hachigian, which opened its doors there in April.