Baker Botts Celebrates 175 Years in Lone Star State

A decade ago, Bill Kroger, co-chair of Baker Botts’ energy litigation practice, was rethinking what he wanted to do as a lawyer.

Kroger picked up all manner of books about lawyers and about the history of law, but none helped him answer his questions. Then, he thought about Baker Botts’ archives.

“We have the world’s greatest treasure chest of historical records that no one has looked through,” Kroger told Big Law Business. “I started on my own going through those.”

Since then, he’s been the firm’ s unofficial historian at Baker Botts, which celebrated its 175^thanniversary in 2015. Launched in 1840 as a solo shop by a man whose name was dropped from the letterhead long ago, it has grown to a global firm with 725 lawyers on four continents. Nearly as old as Texas itself, the history of the firm in many ways mirrors the history of the state.

[caption id="attachment_6391" align="alignleft” width="235"][Image “PeterGray” (src=https://bol.bna.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/12/PeterGray.png)]Peter Gray[/caption]

It was founded by Peter Gray who was born in Fredericksburg, Va. in 1819, and didn’t moved to Texas until 1838, shortly after Texas won its independence.

His father William Gray, also an attorney, had traveled to Texas to negotiate the loan to the Republic of Texas after it declared independence from Mexico, Kroger said. That loan was used to purchase weapons for Sam Houston’s army.

“So William Fairfax Gray, the father, went over to Washington on the Brazos and took notes on what was happening in his diary and took some of the most accurate and contemporaneous notes of what survivors were saying about what had happened at the Alamo,” Kroger said. “How everybody had died. He got completely excited about all of this and went back to Virginia and moved his whole family to Texas.”

In 1840, Peter Gray began his law practice, which is why the firm celebrated its 175^thanniversary in 2015. Gray formed a partnership with his cousin, Walter Browne Botts, soon after the Civil War ended in 1865. Gray knew the federal banks would be coming to Texas as well as the railroads, Kroger said.

“Texas was underserved by railroads and those need large amounts of capital,” Kroger explained. “He formed a firm to handle that work. He represented the banks, the railroads.”

Judge James A. Baker, joined the firm in 1872 and the firm changed its name to Gray, Botts and Baker. Gray was appointed to the Texas Supreme Court in 1874 and he left the firm and the firm became known and Baker & Botts. Peter Gray died that same year from tuberculosis.

Kroger has been sharing discoveries with colleagues at Baker Botts and the firm’s website . The letters, internal memos and publications have been like a mentor to him.

One of the things Kroger found special were transcripts of monthly meetings, beginning in 1916, held at the home of Captain Baker, son of Judge Baker. At these meetings, Baker would teach lawyers at the firm how to practice law. These lessons included updates on regulations, and also lessons on writing and grammar.

“It was the greatest mentoring I ever had,” Kroger said. “You realize that a lot of the stresses or problems that lawyers have today, those have been in the profession for a hundred years.”

Captain Baker’s son, James A. Baker Jr. would also become a partner at the firm. His grandson is former Secretary of State James A. Baker III, who joined the firm in 1993 after public service. Secretary Baker’s son, Jamie Baker, is currently the chair of the global projects department, Kroger said.

[caption id="attachment_6399" align="alignright” width="333"][Image “Photp of an early classified ad.” (src=https://bol.bna.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/12/BakerBotts4.png)]Photo of an early classified ad.[/caption]

Some of the firm’s current clients have had a relationship with the firm for generations. Captain Baker managed the criminal prosecution of the murder of William Marsh Rice, one of the wealthiest men in Texas. By doing this, Baker was able to probate Rice’s will, which in turn led to the establishment of Rice University, a present-day client of the firm. The Houston Gas Light Company, which the firm began representing after the Civil War would become present day CenterPoint Energy, Kroger said.

Baker Botts also represented former President George H. Bush in the 1950s when he was an oil and gas executive, Kroger said. In the 1960s, a young George W. Bush was given a job at the firm’s mail room. The firm would represent the younger Bush inBush v. Gore, which centered around the contested 2000 presidential election.

“We recently found a collection of his [Bush Sr.] correspondence with us,” Kroger said. “It’s interesting because we always think of him in a political light, but you see a different side of him. He was on the rigs, making operational decisions.”

Kroger had also found information on some lesser-known but interesting cases as well. Around 1913, the firm represented Wells Fargo in what appears to be one of the first car accident cases in Texas. A Wells Fargo delivery wagon, which was a horse and cart, had a collision with an automobile. The firm won the case.

“The automobile laws weren’t well established and the rules of the road were not clear, so there was a lawsuit over the accident,” Kroger said.

[caption id="attachment_6392" align="alignnone” width="600"][Image “Photo of Baker Botts in Houston 1912.” (src=https://bol.bna.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/12/BakerBotts2.png)]Photo of Baker Botts in Houston 1912.[/caption]

The firm also participated in some more noteworthy cases, such as early IP work involving drill bits for Schlumberger and Hughes Tool Co. The firm also represented a railroad company in the first case establishing in Texas the rule of capture around 1901. The firm also represented Pennzoil, inPennzoil v. Texaco.

While it could be said that Baker Botts helped shaped history, historical events also impacted the firm and shaped its practice. The firm was primarily a railroad law firm, Kroger said until two major events, the Galveston Hurricane in 1900 and the discovery of oil at Spindletop in 1901.

“Spindletop is where Texas became energy capital of the world,” Kroger said. “We suddenly didn’t have enough lawyers to handle all that work.”

The firm began adding lawyers and by the 1985, the firm had four offices.

“Spindletop was not unlike the Shale Boom we have right now,” Kroger said. “There was a supply and demand for crude oil and there was huge amount found in Texas so the price of crude plummeted and crude oil was selling for pennies a barrel. Spindletop itself was subject to litigation for 20 years.”

[caption id="attachment_6397" align="alignnone” width="679"][Image “Photo of Spindletop” (src=https://bol.bna.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/12/Spindletop.png)]Photo of Spindletop[/caption]

In the long run, discovery at Spindletop was good for Texas, Kroger said and he believes it will be the same for the shale boom. While prices might be low in the next couple of years, the Texas energy industry ultimately will be in good shape.

The firm witnessed other turbulent times, such as the Great Depression and World War II. Kroger found internal correspondence from the era of the Great Depression. The letters were written to give employees reassurance that everything was going to be okay, Kroger said.

The hardest time for the firm was probably World War II. About half to two-thirds of the attorneys were drafted or had enlisted, all young talent, Kroger said. They were sent all over the world. Kroger found the personnel files of many of the attorneys that fought in World War II. The firm would write to their employees and tell them about what was happening in the firm as well as information about their colleagues who had also enlisted.

“There was no Internet, so people didn’t know what was happening to their friends,” Kroger said. “So we would be like a central way to kind of keep everybody informed of how everyone was doing.”

When the war ended, the firm hired back all the attorneys that had left to serve and they all came back, Kroger said.

“The theme that I constantly come across is that during hard times, for lawyers that do their work well and give good advice and stay at it, those also present opportunities,” Kroger said. “If you can identify those opportunities and jump on them, those can be good years for you.”