Hurricane Ike: No damage at Thompson & Knight's Houston office

Hurricane Ike did not damage the downtown Houston office of Thompson & Knight, says Dallas Parker. He's managing partner of the firm’s Houston office, which is located in the Allen Center at 333 Clay St. He says the office did not lose electrical power, water, Internet access or sustain any broken windows. “We were very, very fortunate,” Parker says. About a dozen attorneys were working from the firm’s downtown office yesterday, while others worked via BlackBerry and laptop computers, he says. The Dallas-based firm has about 100 attorneys in its Houston office. It has a skeletal support staff working today, Parker says, but he was unable to predict how many lawyers would be in the office today. “The schools haven’t started back up,” Parker says. “People have children and families to take care of. That is our main concern at this point. We do not want to put an undue stress on anyone.” The firm sent an e-mail message on Monday to several thousand clients, he says. “We did get a message out to all of our Houston area clients yesterday, through our database, to let them know that our files and servers are secure and that we are operational and can serve their needs,” he says.
-- Jeanne Graham