Since the
Clark Law Firm was established in October, 2003, the firm has
provided legal representation to clients in North
Texas, throughout the United States of America and internationally.
All of our attorneys have been successful practitioners at large
firms. We offer potential clients the same
quality representation and experience in our practice areas as
senior attorneys with large firms, without sacrificing the personalized
attention and efficiency that comes with a modest-sized
staff. The firm will use all the significant tools at its disposal
to obtain the results you seek.
The firm
was founded by Charles Clark, who in 1982 began his career as a summer
intern at Bracewell & Patterson in Houston (now Bracewell &
Giuliani), then the fourth largest firm in Texas. Only two
years later he was recruited to return to Dallas to start the real
estate practice at Thompson, Coe, Cousins & Irons (now Thompson
Coe). In 1988, he joined a large, regional firm,
then based in Dallas, Winstead Sechrest & Minick (now Winstead),
where he practiced for 15 years.
Charles has
practiced primarily transactional business law and commercial real
estate law all of his career. On graduation from law school, he
joined the prestigious Real Estate Section of Bracewell as an
associate. While he obtained experience in mortgage lending,
leasing and other positive real estate transactions, the oil and gas
industry and real estate market in Houston soon turned downward and
Charles learned early on how to workout problems among lenders and
borrowers, equity investors and developers and other parties who become
adverse in a negative business environment.
The real estate
practice of Thompson, Coe, Cousins & Irons was founded in late 1984
by Charles and a law school classmate who had joined the firm directly
out of law school. Together, they built the real estate practice
into one of the fastest growing and most profitable areas of this
primarily insurance defense firm. Charles handled many positive
transactions in lending, leasing and development for his clients, but in
1986 a real estate downturn caused by changes in tax laws and some
over-speculation and fraud began to occur in the real estate
market. At that time, Charles was engaged in representing the
Federal Savings and Loan Insurance Corporation (FSLIC), and
eventually the Resolution Trust Corporation (RTC) and the Federal
Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC), in the closing and liquidation of
failed financial institutions.
As the problems in
the real estate market continued to spread, Charles found himself
unable to represent several of his lender, landlord and developer
clients due to conflicts with the work he was performing for the FSLIC,
RTC and FDIC. At the same time, Charles had several dealings with
lawyers in the large and prestigious real estate practice of
Winstead. Over a three year courtship, Charles
eventually agreed to join Winstead in order to take advantage of
opportunities to represent these other clients. As the problems in
the real estate market continued to spread across the country, Charles
and a colleague opened a Washington, D.C. office for Winstead and a new
consulting affiliate of Winstead called WINCO Asset Services, Inc.
During his four-years in D.C., the firm's office grew to 15 lawyers,
all practicing in real estate or practice areas supporting real
estate. In addition to handling real estate problems of clients,
while in D.C. Charles developed a thriving lending, leasing and
development practice. One of the highlights of his practice was
the purchase by a client of a large ($300m) problem loan portfolio, to
his knowledge the first such portfolio sold by an institutional lender.
On his return to
the Dallas office of Winstead in 1994, Charles rebuilt there an active
lending, leasing and development practice, while working on some special
projects. He represented an NFL franchise in the development and
leasing of its new stadium. He also represented a governmental
entity in the development of a large multi-purpose stadium and prepared
the wish list for the owner of another NFL franchise to be used in
negotiations with governments for the site of a
stadium. Charles also represented the purchaser of the
fixed-base operations at a local airport.
Law firms are
dynamic organisms that change over time. Some changes are positive
and some can be negative. It became apparent to Charles that he
should open his own firm where he could impose his own ethical standards
and personal characteristics of hard work, good judgment,
practical solutions and less bureaucracy in providing legal
services to his clients. Since the opening of the firm's office in
2003, we have zealously maintained those same attributes that
competitively differentiate our firm.
