When Michael Boone joined Richard Haynes’s solo practice in Dallas fresh out of law school in 1967, there were only ten 100-lawyer firms in the country and little guidance about how to join that elite group. “There were no consultants on law firm management back then,” Boone says. “We just had this innate curiosity about how to run a law firm as a successful business.” Three years later, Haynes made Boone a full partner, and the firm now known as Haynes and Boone was born, with first-year revenue of $250,000. Since those modest beginnings, the firm has grown to include 12 offices around the world and more than 500 lawyers. Its annual revenue is now $300 million. But along with that growth, Boone has remained steadfast in his dedication to public service. For these reasons, we award Boone the 2011 Law Firm Distinguished Leader Award.
The growth really started at a company retreat in 1985. Haynes and Boone had already added a second office, in Fort Worth, but still had only about 60 lawyers. At the retreat, Boone laid out three goals for the firm to meet by the end of the twentieth century: to be one of the two or three largest firms in Dallas, to be one of the five or six largest firms in the Southwest, and to have a significant expansion in its national and international practice areas.
