Charles Gillis

Charles Gillis is the Chief Operating Officer of McGinnis Lochridge, where he leads the business operations of the firm’s Texas offices. 

Charles has worked in law firm management for more than thirty years. He began in 1991 as a courthouse runner in Austin and has since led the business side of firms ranging from a boutique practice to a firm with offices across Florida. At McGinnis Lochridge, he helps guide the firm’s business and operations, including finance, people, technology and growth, working with the Managing Partner and firm leadership. 

Before joining the firm in 2026, he was Executive Director of Platt Richmond PLLC in Dallas and, before that, Chief Administrative Officer of GrayRobinson, P.A., an AmLaw 200 firm based in Florida. From 2018 to 2020 he was President of Northside Human Strategies, a consulting firm that worked with law firms and legal departments on recruiting and law firm management. Before that, for nearly eight years, he was Executive Director of Munsch Hardt Kopf & Harr, P.C., where he served on the firm’s Executive Committee. Earlier in his career, he managed human resources for the Dallas office of Patton Boggs (now Squire Patton Boggs) and was the first firm administrator of Brown & Hofmeister, L.L.P. 

His work centers on the people side of a law firm: recruiting and keeping talented lawyers and staff, planning for growth, and building the processes that let lawyers focus on their clients. He writes about the business of law for The Texas Lawbook and other publications in the United States and Canada, and is the author of The Seven Year Trap: Back Office Observations of the Business of Law and the Path to Partnership (2018). 

Charles has long supported trade between Texas and Canada. He is a past Chair of the Canada-Texas Chamber of Commerce and served on the executive committee of the Canada-Florida Chamber of Commerce.

Community & Professional

• Canada-Texas Chamber of Commerce (Past Chair; Board of Directors, 2015 to 2020; Advisory Board, 2023 to 2025) 

• Canada-Florida Chamber of Commerce (Executive Committee, 2021 to 2022) 

• Nova Scotia Business Inc. (now Invest Nova Scotia), Scotians Global Advisor (2015 to 2022) 

• The University of Texas at Dallas, Naveen Jindal School of Management, Executive Education Advisory Board (2018 to 2020) 

• Society for Human Resource Management