Andrew McKinney of McKinney Taylor in Houston. Courtesy photo.

More than half of defense firm Litchfield Cavo's Houston office has left the firm to open a new litigation boutique, McKinney Taylor.

Andrew McKinney, a principal of the new firm, said he and his colleagues decided they wanted to be “masters of their own fate” at a smaller firm. The 15-lawyer shop opened its doors on June 3.

Chicago-based Litchfield Cavo, which has 22 offices around the country, is left with 11 lawyers in Houston, according to its website.

McKinney said client conflicts came up frequently at the 264-lawyer Litchfield Cavo, creating enough of an issue that it made sense to spin off. The new firm allows for fewer conflicts and more rate flexibility, he said.

Additionally, McKinney said, the partners wanted to avoid a financial cost created by the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, which President Donald Trump signed into law in late 2017.

“All of us, the partners at Litchfield in Texas, have imputed income from these other states and we were paying tens of thousands of [dollars in] state income taxes that we can't deduct. You are capped out at $10,000,” he said, noting that property taxes alone in Texas can put a taxpayer over that benchmark.

That won't be a problem at the new firm because it has only one office in Houston, McKinney said. He said the group has no plans to expand outside of Texas, because its practice doesn't require that.

In addition to McKinney and Tory Taylor, the principals at the boutique include Mindy Bradley, Kim Cooper and Sharon Cullen, according to the website. (McKinney Taylor refers to partners with equity in the firm as principals.) Gwen Richard and J. Kent Twining are co-managing partners of the firm.

The firm's practice areas include civil appeals, commercial litigation, coverage analysis and litigation, construction litigation, tort defense, premises liability, product liability, professional liability and trucking litigation. McKinney declined to identify clients, but he said that with fewer conflicts in the way, the lawyers have already added some new clients to their roster.

“We have had probably the best month ever on new case assignments,” he said, looking back at the new firm's first four weeks in operation.

McKinney, who practiced for 12 years at his own firm, McKinney Cooper, before joining Litchfield Cavo in Houston nearly seven years ago, said the boutique has a small office because it embraces telecommuting.

McKinney said he plans to telecommute a few days a month from his retirement home in the Austin area.

When asked to comment on the departures, Matthew Walker, the managing partner of the Litchfield Cavo office in Houston, said, “Those lawyers were a part of the firm and they left to form a different firm.” He declined to comment further.