Johnson, Christopher, Javore & Cochran, Inc.

Focus and practice areas

The firm lists three core areas on its practice page: construction law, real property, and mediation and arbitration. Its home page names more work beyond those: general civil practice and trials, probate, commercial law, consumer law, corporate formation and collections. The common thread is contracts and the disputes that grow out of them.

Construction is where the site goes into the most detail. The firm describes contract negotiation, counseling, litigation and dispute resolution on office, commercial and residential building projects. As a reviewer, I read that as a practice equipped for both the drafting side and the courtroom side of a building matter.

Construction cases tend to turn on documents. Contracts, change orders, payment applications and inspection records usually decide who owes what. A firm that drafts the agreements and later litigates them has worked both ends of that paper trail, and that continuity is what many construction clients look for.

Civil, commercial and consumer work

Beyond construction, the firm states experience in general civil practice and trials, commercial law and consumer law. General civil work covers the broad category of private disputes that reach the courts, including business disagreements and contract claims between individuals. A firm that states trial experience signals a willingness to take a matter to a verdict when settlement talks stall.

Commercial and consumer law point to work on both sides of the marketplace. Commercial matters usually involve contracts and dealings between businesses, while consumer law concerns the rights and obligations that arise when a business deals with the public. Handling both keeps the firm useful to its corporate clients across a range of everyday legal questions.

How the team is built

The site names four attorneys. Gary W. Javore and Stephen G. Cochran hold the title of Member. Nicholas J. Tamsma and Taylor Beaver are listed as Senior Associate Attorneys.

Javore joined the firm in 1981 and Cochran in 1983, so both bring more than four decades with the firm. Tamsma joined in 2021. His work covers construction and real estate disputes, business litigation and creditor-debtor matters, which lines up closely with the firm's construction and collections work.

Taylor Beaver practices in San Antonio and earned a Juris Doctor from St. Mary's University School of Law in 2014. Public profiles connect Beaver with Akerman LLP as well as with this firm.

The firm's history and structure

Clyde Johnson and Henry Christopher started the firm in 1963. Javore's arrival in 1981 and Cochran's in 1983 added the two names that now sit at the front of the masthead. The current entity, Johnson, Christopher, Javore and Cochran, Inc., took its present form in 1987.

A firm that traces its roots to 1963 and still carries its founders' names has held a stable identity for more than sixty years. In my opinion the 2021 addition of a senior associate points to attention to succession, with newer lawyers taking on the construction and litigation files that have long defined the firm's work.

The two-tier structure of Members and Senior Associate Attorneys is a common shape for a mid-sized civil firm. It puts long-tenured partners over the client relationships while associates carry active files, and that gives clients a clear line of responsibility on a given matter.

Property, probate and collections

Real property is the second of the firm's three core areas. Property work in Texas often runs alongside construction: title questions, easements, boundary disputes and purchase agreements touch the same clients who build and buy. Keeping both under one roof lets a builder client bring a land question and a contract question to the same lawyers.

The home page also lists probate, corporate formation and collections. Probate matters move through the county courts and cover the administration of estates and the handling of wills. Corporate formation work sets up the entities that later sign the contracts the litigation side may enforce. Collections and the creditor-debtor matters Tamsma handles close that loop, since a firm that drafts and litigates contracts is well placed to pursue money owed under them.

Construction clients and where the firm works

The named client list leans toward homebuilders. It includes McM Texas Homes, Highland Homes, Drees Homes and Chesmar Homes, along with The Towers Cooperative Association, Las Palapas Enterprises, Inc. and the Greater San Antonio Builders Association.

That roster says something concrete about the day-to-day work. Representing production homebuilders means handling construction contracts, warranty questions and payment disputes at volume. The presence of a cooperative association and a local restaurant company shows the firm also takes commercial and civil matters outside the building trade.

The firm handles matters in San Antonio, Austin, Central Texas, South Texas and the Hill Country. That reach covers the corridor between San Antonio and Austin and stretches south and into the Hill Country, which matches the firm's construction and property focus.

Mediation and peer recognition

Two of the firm's attorneys work as neutrals as well as advocates. Gary Javore works as a mediator and takes bookings through the National Academy of Distinguished Neutrals. The firm lists mediation and arbitration among its three core areas, so dispute resolution is a settled part of what it offers.

Mediation and arbitration give parties a route to resolve a dispute outside a full trial. In mediation a neutral third party helps the sides reach their own agreement, while arbitration puts the decision in the hands of a private arbitrator. A construction firm that offers both, and that has a partner who sits as a neutral, can steer a stalled contract fight toward a faster resolution.

Javore and Cochran have each received an AV Preeminent Peer Review Rating from Martindale-Hubbell. That rating comes from peer assessments of legal ability and ethical standards, and it counts as one of the more established markers in the profession.

The firm's attorneys are also described as active in the Greater San Antonio Builders Association and the San Antonio Bar Association. Involvement in a builders association fits work this focused on construction, and it keeps the lawyers close to the industry they represent.