Brewer, Attorneys & Counselors—formerly Bickel & Brewer—paints itself as the type of high-powered, bet-the-bank commercial litigation firm you would see on prime time. And perhaps it's a fitting image: the firm's commercial litigation and dispute resolution experts represent some of the nation's biggest oil and gas, real estate and technology firms in high-stakes cases.

Ruffling Feathers in Dallas

Founded in 1984, Brewer, Attorneys & Counselors quickly developed a reputation for what the New York Times then referred to as a “bare-knuckles” approach to litigation. The firm’s legal team is not afraid to take on complex commercial litigation battles, and its no-holds-barred approach to litigation has earned grudging admiration from its competitors.

Brewer takes its talent pool seriously. Many of its attorneys have backgrounds in technical fields like biology and chemistry. The firm also employs a group of in-house litigation consultants, and even formed its own in-house investigation group, staffed by former FBI agents.

Dressing for Power

Bucking the business casual trend, Brewer snubs any form of dressing down. Noting that even the mailroom clerks wear suits and ties, the Wall Street Journal once recognized firm co-founder and three-button suit aficionado Bill Brewer as one of the legal industry’s most committed “power dressers,” a la Gordon Gecko. Brewer told the Journal that “high-powered lawyers” should “look like high powered lawyers.”

Outsourced

Whether it will be hailed as a prophet or apocalyptic horseman for its pioneering move of legal outsourcing remains to be seen, but in 1995 Brewer opened an office in Hyderabad, India where employees scan, code, index, and abstract documents. The practice was reportedly so successful that the firm created an independent company to handle even more of the firm’s work abroad. While some of the outsourced tasks do not require law degrees, the subsidiary has recently hired attorneys in India to help Brewer sort through extensive information in some big-ticket cases at a much cheaper hourly rate.