With an eye on expanding in Dallas, a market teeming with homegrown Texas firms and national firm outposts, midsize Oklahoma-based Crowe & Dunlevy brought on a fresh mind with local connections to lead the charge on client development and strategy.

About six months ago the firm hired Milan Markovic, also a professor at Texas A&M University School of Law, as a legal industry analyst, a part-time role. While he is a lawyer, his job at the firm is not to practice law, but to provide a strategic edge as the firm expands its two-year-old Dallas office.