This is the latest update on lateral partner and counsel moves in the Washington, D.C. area. The data included in these reports is primarily derived from Firm Prospects LLC. For more details and analysis, including a list of laterals for the month, please contact Steve Nelson.
Lateral hiring basically held steady in July, as 74 partner and counsel moves were reported, down just one from June. At the same time, however, that 74 figure was much higher than the 50 moves that were reported in June 2024. As a result, lateral hiring in 2025 remains well above that in 2024.
However, all of that increase can be attributed to a surge in hiring from the government. Government hiring remained strong in July with 29 moves from government positions, up from 28 from June. Overall, there have been 192 government moves so far in 2025, compared to 49 during the same time period in 2024.
The number of government moves in 2025 far exceed the number of moves during the first seven months after the last change in administration in 2021.
As usual, the Department of Justice accounted for the most hires, with nine attorneys moving to private practice. But unlike previous months, many other agencies were well represented, including HHS (4), Treasury (3), Commerce (3), FDA (2), HUD (2), and the now-defunct USAID (2).
Only one group move was reported in July, a combined Government Relations and Intellectual Property group that joined Brownstein, Hyatt, Farber & Schreck from Crowell & Moring.
Other firms reporting multiple hires included:
- Akin, Gump
- Arnall Golden Gregory
- Covington & Burling
- DLA Piper
- Dunn Isaacson Rhee (the spinoff from Paul Weiss)
- Husch Blackwell
- Jones Day
- King & Spalding
- Latham & Watkins
- Mintz Levin
- Morgan Lewis & Bockus
- Winston & Strawn
For the first time in recent memory, most of the movers came in as counsel (39 out of the 74 moves). Overall, 27 women were hired by law firms in June, but only 10 (37 percent) entered as partners. That compared to 25 of the 47 men (53.2 percent) who joined their new firms as partners.
Litigation was the most active practice area, with 14 moves.
Other active practice areas included:
- Intellectual Property (7)
- Banking/Finance (7)
- International Trade (5)
- Data Privacy (4)
- FDA (4)
- Health Care (4)
- Antitrust (4)
- Government Relations (3)
- White Collar/Investigations (3)
- Labor/Employment (3)
In the latest episode of “Steve’s Rules”, TMG’s Steve Nelson interviews Tim Corcoran of the Corcoran Consulting Group on designing and implementing law firm partner compensation programs and its application to lateral hiring and integration. Among the topics discussed were:
- The primary issues that are leading firms to retain his services.
- The most frequent flaws in law firm compensation systems
- Balancing the contributions of rainmakers and key subject matter experts.
- How firms handle compensation of laterals, particularly in situations that those attorneys are not bringing all of their originated business to their new firms.
- How firms should design bonus programs for laterals
This is the 17th episode of Steve’s Rules. The podcast is available on virtually all platforms, including Apple and Spotify.
