When Best Lawyers named McDowell, Rice, Smith & Buchanan a 2026 “Best Law Firm,” it wasn’t a pat on the back—it was a peer-driven acknowledgement that our bench wins hard cases and closes hard deals. We’ve built a practice other firms call when the matter is bet-the-company, the injunction needs to stick, or the transaction has too many zeroes and too little time. Judges quote our briefs, adversaries recalibrate after our first meet-and-confer, and clients stay because we deliver business results—not just elegant memos. This designation simply puts a national label on what our co-counsel and opposing counsel already know: our partners lead from the front, our associates punch above their years, and our teams show up prepared to end the fight or finish the deal.
For peer firms, here’s what that means in practice: we’re the conflict-free solution you can trust with your best client; the co-counsel that brings trial craft, regulatory fluency, and pragmatic deal judgment in one shop; and the referral partner who protects relationships while expanding outcomes. The work that earned the 2026 recognition spans high-stakes trials, complex workouts, and cross-border transactions—executed with tight timelines, clean execution, and candid communication. If you need a partner that elevates the strategy, steadies the client, and lands the result, that’s the standard we’re now publicly measured by—and the one we intend to keep setting.