Orrick Grows M&A Team in Texas, Says More Lawyers Will Be Coming

Orrick Herrington & Sutcliffe has added a mergers and acquisitions attorney in Texas as the firm sees energy demand growing in part because of artificial intelligence data centers.

Nick Woodruff, who previously worked as counsel at Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom, joins as a partner in the energy and infrastructure practice in Houston, Orrick announced.

Woodruff is the “first hire through the gate” for the firm, which is expected to add a number of energy-minded M&A attorneys next month in Texas and elsewhere in the US, Kyle Drefke, a Washington, DC-based partner who co-leads the firm’s global energy and infrastructure practice, said in an interview Wednesday. The firm recruited 18 team partners worldwide to the team in 2025.

Orrick is among Big Law firms in Texas making a play at capturing a slice of the AI data center market. The state is poised to more than double capture U.S. data center market share to nearly 30% of by 2028, according to a Bloom Energy Corp. report released Jan. 20.

“It’s just this tremendous opportunity for the market,” Drefke said. “We think that there’s going to be a continued consolidation of work in those firms who have a full service offering in the space.”

He described the robust levels of activity as “a lawyer’s dream” due to the increased legal work in the development, financing and M&A associated with the projects in Texas and across the country.

But Orrick, which opened an office in Houston in 2016, expects to face challenges in “winning deals” in Texas and across the US, Drefke said. “It’s a very competitive market,” he said.