How Joshua Fueled His Full-Service Law Firm in Texas

Are you struggling to remain true to your firm’s heritage while scaling into new practice areas?

Join this conversation with Joshua Swain as he unpacks valuable lessons from oil and gas work in East Texas, explaining how hands-on experience shaped his approach to full-service law.

By the end, you'll discover why mentorship, real-world exposure, and community-centric values are essential for fueling long-term success in a Texas-based law firm.

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📄 CHAPTERS

00:00 - The East Texas Journey: From Oil & Gas Roots

02:00 - Embracing a Generational Legacy to Serve Clients Better

05:07 - Field Work & Firsthand Lessons in Negotiation

09:36 - Life-Changing Transactions That Shape Families’ Futures

15:28 - Mentorship and Practical Tips for Young Attorneys

18:40 - Final Thoughts & Next Steps for Future Growth

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Chapters

• 0:00 The East Texas Journey: From Oil & Gas Roots
• 2:00 Embracing a Generational Legacy to Serve Clients Better
• 5:07 Field Work & Firsthand Lessons in Negotiation
• 9:36 Life-Changing Transactions That Shape Families’ Futures
• 15:28 Mentorship and Practical Tips for Young Attorneys
• 18:40 Final Thoughts & Next Steps for Future Growth

Transcript

0:00

Gas is just as fascinating as any other piece of lore today. Joshua Swain tells us about his practice that was born in East Texas. Welcome back to The Revenue Roadmap, the podcast designed to help family law firms grow their firm, Institute best practices and become great leaders. My name is Tyler Dolf. I am the CEO of Rocket Clicks, a hyper focused digital marketing firm that works exclusively with family law firms across the country. We also own and operate our own family law firm called Sterling Lawyers, that has 25 offices across Wisconsin and Illinois. Today, I am interviewing Joshua Swain of, Coughlin and Crowson, a oil and gas law firm based in East Texas that has been around for a very long time. They started kind of an oil and gas and energy and now have evolved into more estate planning, and business law. Josh's journey is amazing. He started at the firm and became a partner. His evolution and the way the firm still focuses on the founding members values is a great session. I really hope you enjoy it. Josh, appreciate you taking some time with us Sure, sure. So I, our firm's in East Texas. In Longview specifically. And so. We're right. In that belt of. Texas where. We get really cold, damp. Weather. That is, like, bone chilling. But we don't ever get snow. We don't ever get, ice. It's just cold. Just bitter cold. It's just. There's nothing fun about it. You don't get to play outside it. It's just wet, damp, cold. But now it's great. It's a there's a ton of pine. Trees, and the spring is beautiful here. Fall is spectacular. So, it's a great place to live. So my my name is Joshua Swain. I am a partner at the Coughlin and Law firm. Our firm has been. In Longview for about 60. Years. We've been here a long time. One of the oldest in our city. And, I've been a. Partner here for 7 or 8 years. And then, associated with the. Firm for about. 13. So I've been here a good long while. My background is in East Texas. I was raised here. And, went to college here. Left, for a little. While, went to school in the metroplex, finishing law school, and then, came back here, following jobs. So, that's where I'm at. I, you. Know, our firm carries its name from our original founding partners, Howard. Coughlin and David Croson. Who were. And I'm sure you guys had these in your own communities. They were. They were pillars of the community. It's like everybody knew. Who they were. Everybody wanted to know them. And. And so our firm is carry trying to carry on that. Legacy that they started. For. You know, decades ago. And so, so far we've been pretty successful with it. Yeah. So, one thing that we've held on to while we. Do more than what we started out with, Howard Coughlin, who started our firm. Was considered by many to be the preeminent. Energy and oil and gas lawyer in the country. In the 60s and 70s. And so if you if you look at opinions, dealing with everything from the EPA and its origins, to prominent oil and gas cases in Texas, Mississippi, Alabama, Louisiana, you'll see his name sprinkled. In there, whether it's. Because he was a part of the case or because he was a special. Advisor to the government. And if you can dig up the. Records. Even of when the government was exploring. For they were mining for uranium out. In, out in the, kind of the Midwest and in. The western parts of. The of the country. You'll see his name sprinkled in there. He was a special. Advisor on a number of. Occasions. Just helping the federal government and state governments navigate, mineral ownership. So our backbone really started with oil, gas and energy. And then kind of the natural outworking of had, natural growth patterns took us into a state planning. Property and real. Estate and then business and then kind of the transactional side of that, and so on both sides of that equation. You know, in those areas we do. Transactional work, which is. All of what I do. And then we also do, commercial litigation on all of those individual components as well. So we only have one location, in East Texas. Now, you know. By virtue. Of technology, we have the. Privilege of working with clients that are based. In down in the Permian Basin and up in the metroplex, down in the Houston area. So we get to work with a number of companies that. Are. Located outside of East Texas. But I would say that probably still 50%. Of our client. Base still is in the East Texas in the Deep East Texas area. We've it's it's interesting how, and I think it's a. Product. Of, of the firms. Generational heritage. Is that, you know, if you if you know what you're looking for, you can find our website. If you know a. Lawyer that works there, you can. Find a website. But if if you're looking for, social media posts and we're it's really they're absent because we've, we've still held on to this type of, nostalgia. Like word of mouth. Local lawyer. Come and drop. Drop by, have coffee with us. That kind of feel. Which is great. I mean, it's I'm the youngest professional staff and. Lawyers. In the firm. So for me, it's been, eye opening, I guess, in some respects to to. Get to work with a generation. That still sees so much value in that kind of one. To one personal contact. Sure. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's right. You provide a service and you try to add value to a situation. And, So I. Think you're. You're right. Is that, you know, a firm that can can learn how to make those to maintain. A level of personal touch and a personality. With their clients. But also, use the skills and use the tools available. To reach a broader audience. Which is, I mean, giving more people access to quality legal services is, I think, another tenant of what the profession should really focus on. Okay. Sure. So when I was in law for my second year in school in Texas, we have to take an oil and gas class. Because it's part of a bar. Exam. And so when I took that class, that was kind of built. On our general property law class. I was just fascinated by the concepts of how how one Texas had become this pivotal area within the entire world on. Oil production and gas production. and how that, affects economics and how, how it improves and, and affects politics. And so conceptually, I was drawn to that type of. Practice. And that combined with the fact that I, both my and my wife's families are from East Texas. So we really didn't want to be back here. It was a good fit. A lot of that work to be had. A lot of activity still going on at that time, which I got out of law school in the winter of oh seven. And so if you're familiar at all with, the terms Haynesville shale. Or horizontal drilling or fracking. All of those. Terms became. Well known in oh eight and oh nine. And so I walked back into these Texas when there was a lot of activity. So, a lot. Of work to do. Some of the best advice I got from an older lawyer was, you know, before you, you before you can give anybody advice on what they should do, why don't you go do it a little bit for yourself? And so I spent. Two years. Working in the field, as a land manager, having to be out, negotiating everything from leases to rights of way to, to document and then, that that allowed me to get into kind of the more transactional side of the energy industry. And so, that that's still some of the best advice I've gotten. And what I would give to a young lawyer is, you know, you're going to have a chance to really speak into situations, and change and influence people's. Trajectories from their, their. Families and their businesses. And so if you can spend some time learning it, you know, in a firsthand way so that you can appreciate exactly what you're what you're telling people to do and how you're advising people. And so when I got to law school, that's. That's the first place. I look, was back, in East Texas, and got a job for a company that was. Based in Marshall at the. Time and spent two years. Just working. In the field, meeting all kinds of people. Landowners all the way. From north Louisiana, all the way to Texas. And getting a chance to. Not spend the first couple of years of my career, legal career sitting. Behind a desk because I was I was extremely. Fortunate in that regard. You know, there was, the language wasn't quite as foul. There wasn't it. Wasn't quite as many explosions. But so, no, I, you know, maybe if I had gotten the chance to work with Billy Bob at the time out in the field, it might have been more exotic, but. But generally. No, I mean, I had. The experiences are very, very wide. I, I remember. Having conversations with people. In their living rooms. In homes that. Were. You know, worth more than my home and my parent's home and their parents home and everything else combined. And I remember sitting. In trailers. You know, watching roaches crawl up the wall. So, I mean, it was it was a, a really good learning, learning experience for a young lawyer, who might have been, both out overseas a little bit and also maybe a little bit. Prideful and arrogant. About, about what was hanging on my wall. So I had a chance to sit down with, He is. He's he's on his way to retirement now. But he was the family office. Attorney for a very. Wealthy family. Here in the area. And I just happen to have a connection to him through my stepdad. And so I sit down with him, and I'm a semester. From graduating. Law school, and, kind of that same feeling of, okay, how do I get a job? Do I go out on my own? I kind of realizing that, you know, law school, does it teach you a lot about business? So, you know, you kind of fill in the gaps. And so, I just one of the questions I asked as I, you know, what what advice would you have for me if, if I'm trying to if I want. To work in the energy industry as a lawyer? And he said, look, and I knew what I wanted to do, they said, before you do that, you need to go out and get. Some practical experience. You're going to be advising, individuals, property owners. Landowners, companies on you. You're going to be telling them what to do and they're going to rely on you. But before you do that, you need to go out and actually understand. The real world. Implications of the advice that you're going to give, how it's going to change somebody's family, how it's going to change somebody's life, how it's going to change somebody's land that they've. Held on to for six generations. In their family can date back all the way to the 1860s. You're going to need to understand. And. Appreciate the kind of changes that you're going to have, a hand in making both positive and negative. Yeah. And and, you know, and I'm thinking this guy's fixing to tell me, hey, do this and you're going to make $1 million. And he says, no, you need to go understand what you're fixing to do. So because what you're going to do is, is going to change the lives of people positively and negatively. And so, that was that was a great piece of advice because I had a chance, to go out and actually do field work and meet people that, my practice never would have, come in contact with. I mean, like, on one hand, it was the experience of. Practically learning. How to. Converse with people. When there's such a wide disparity in. Knowledge. But to, on and this was really more related to that, the Haynesville Shale exploration explosion when seeing somebody, you know. Two generations, three generations of. People. Sitting in a trailer. And handing them a check that is 250,000. Dollars. And knowing that. That has forever changed the trajectory trajectory of their entire. Family. I think knowing that that you've done that for somebody or been a part of that, it's it's eye opening to the extent that it really does, it, it allowed me to appreciate in, in a deeper sense, the fact that when you, when you do legal work, whether it's, family law, whether it's estate planning, whether it's litigation, P.I., or whether no matter what you do, what what you end up, doing and accomplishing for your clients. Makes a real. World lasting change. And sometimes those. Ripples carry on for generations. And that was that was a lesson that I, I could not have understood unless I had I had been on that side of, side of the equation. Okay. Yeah. Ask questions. I mean, that's you know, I think there's this. Undercurrent in law. Schools that, you know, you're typically there with, with bright students, you're typically there with accomplished individuals, whether they're straight out of undergrad or whether it's, it's kind of, after about a couple of years and back into it, you're typically there with very accomplished individuals. And there's this undercurrent, at least in my experience, this. Undercurrent of everybody's smart. Everybody needs to be, everybody belongs here. And there's this. Sense of pride that kind of, has its. Genesis here. And at least in my experience, was You know, nobody else was asking questions. You should be smart enough to figure this out on your own. You really do. You know, you really should. Yeah. You should have this. Had this bull by the tail already. And so the advice I would give to a young lawyer is find people who have done it and done it well, have conversations with them, find, you know, a the catch phrase now is, you know, find a mentor. And I think that's absolutely true. Find somebody who can coach you and tell you how to do things really, really well and can. Work through. Challenging questions with you, about whether it's do I start my own practice? Do I hang my own shingle? Do I do I join a law, a large firm? What does that mean? How does that affect my family? How is that going to look like five years from now, after I'm knee deep in this thing? And a change is much harder? Having somebody to bounce ideas off of in a way that can foster that sense of, continuity and honesty is I think it's incredible. I think it's really important. And I think it's really important what you guys are doing, what you put together here, because it is not everybody has the chance to do this. Step 101. Whether. It's because of their personality or opportunity. Having a forum where you can tie into and get. Real world practical. Advice on how to practice law. Yes, but how to how to fold a legal practice into your life overall and how. That works and what that. Looks like in the. Rewards you get. And how you are able to, influence things around you in your community. I think it's wonderful that you. Guys are putting. This together and from what I've watched the other interviews, I it's you guys had some spectacular people on here and it's so I mean, truly, I this is this is really a, quite a thrill for me. Yeah. Yeah. Of course. But, you know, young lawyers getting tied into. Forums and opportunities like this where they can learn in a very practical. Way, and pick up nuggets that they can put into action that very same day. I think it's a critical. Part of. Maintaining and advancing the health of the legal industry. In general. Of course. My pleasure. Yes. They are truly. Thank you, everyone for listening. We will see you next time on revenue roadmap. If you enjoyed this interview, you can continue down our interview series. Where, next week, we talk to the law firm, the Pacific Northwest Family law Firm. Make sure to check it out here. Because it's one you are not going to want to miss.