The Heart of Bexar County

G
BRACEWELL,
LLP
From top to bottom:
Richard C. Danysh.
Leslie Selig Byrd.
James P. Plummer.
William T. Avila.
A small law firm that that had a modest
beginning nearly seventy-five years ago is now an
international powerhouse with more than 350
lawyers and offices in New York, Washington,
San Antonio, Hartford, Dallas, and Austin, as well
as overseas offices in London and Dubai.
It all started in November 1945, when two
brothers—Searcy and Fentress Bracewell—just
home from their service in World War II, joined
their father, J. S. Bracewell, and Judge Bert Tunks
to form a new law firm named Bracewell & Tunks.
Searcy Bracewell was elected to the Texas
Senate in 1946, representing Harris County. He
ultimately became the majority leader of the
Senate. The development of the new law firm was
led by Fentress Bracewell.
Harry W. Patterson joined the firm in 1951. In
1966, the firm was renamed Bracewell & Patterson.
It became known as Bracewell LLP in 2016.
From the beginning, the Bracewells understood
that for their firm to succeed they needed to
maintain a relentless focus on professional excellence.
As they dreamed of building a larger law
firm, they also understood that the firm’s roots
needed to be deeply embedded in a culture
emphasizing personal relationships and teamwork.
Based on Bracewell’s great success as a
statewide and community leader before the war,
the Bracewells believed that a commitment to
public and community service should be a key
component of their firm. This commitment to
professional excellence, to personal relationships
and teamwork, and to public and community
service, remain the firm’s cornerstones.
Bracewell’s reputation for professional excellence
began in the courtroom. Bracewell was well
known as a fierce and relentless litigator, and the
post-war era saw the firm assume and extend that
reputation. The firm’s reputation for professional
excellence grew from insurance defense to labor,
tax, condemnation and business litigation. In the
1960s and early 1970s, the growing Texas economy
began to attract business enterprises from all
over the world, as well as financing from money
center banks. Bracewell’s litigation practice evolved
during this period and the firm was involved in a
number of large-scale commercial disputes.
As the energy and financial services sectors
grew dramatically in Texas during the 1970s,
Bracewell’s reputation for professional excellence
attracted clients focused on transactional and
7 8 F T H E H E A R T O F B E X A R C O U N T Y