What a Team Hire Changes: 57.7% of DC Insurance Moves

Ask what happens when a law firm hires a team and the honest answer has two parts: the group can become most of a local practice's year, and it leaves no mark on the firm's place in hiring lists. Sartori & Partners data show that in Washington, DC insurance and reinsurance work, 57.7% of the 26 lateral moves in the latest 12 months came as part of a team joining the same firm in the same quarter. For the practice in every city the figure was 3.1%, and for the whole market 1.5%. This report takes the side of the firm that receives the group: how much weight one team carries in a local year, how that compares across practices and cities, and why rankings do not show it.

The Washington cell is small. Firms there made 26 insurance and reinsurance lateral hires in the latest 12 months, 3.9% of the practice's 672 moves worldwide. On that base, team moves came to 57.7%, 18.6 times the practice rate and 56.2 points above the market. With a base this narrow, the figure is a rough size, not a ranking tool.

The timing points the same way. Of those 26 moves, 22 started in August, September and October 2026. The latest 12 months also held 53.1% of the 49 insurance moves into Washington firms over 3 years, and in each earlier calendar year the cell was too small to publish a count. A local practice that saw little lateral traffic for years can have its whole record rewritten in a single quarter.

Meanwhile the practice as a whole did not move: insurance and reinsurance lateral moves held flat (+2.5%) year on year, from 643 to 659 in the settled 12-month windows. For the receiving firm, that contrast is the point. One decision can set the local count for a practice year, and rivals in the city will read it as a market that shifted. Plan conflicts clearance, client notices and seating for the whole group as one project, because the move will be visible as one.

Public announcements show which firms are taking in teams. The newest in the Sartori & Partners record date from the fourth quarter of 2026. One is a group that moved from Wiley Rein to Tyka Law, in the 11-20 band of lawyers identified (announcement: https://www.businessinsurance.com/new-insurance-coverage-law-firm-forms-out-of-wiley-rein/). In the same quarter, Choate Hall & Stewart took in a team in the 11-20 band from Kasowitz Benson Torres (announcement: https://www.mlex.com/pulse/articles/2532906).

A band counts the lawyers we could identify in the move, and that can be lower than the size the firms announced. For the group that joined Brown Rudnick from Herbert Smith Freehills Kramer in the third quarter of 2026, the band is 11-20, while the announcement (https://iipla.org/news/brown-rudnick-expands-silicon-valley-presence-with-historic-34-lawyer-ip-litigation-team-hire-from-hsf-kramer) reports a larger team. Across announcements since 2022, the median team identified was 16 people. Set against Washington insurance work, a team of that median size would equal 61.5% of the local year's moves.

For a firm on the receiving end, the practical reading is simple. Budget and integrate on the group you agreed to hire, and expect public counts of the move to show fewer lawyers than your own announcement did.

Washington insurance is the extreme case, not the only one. In Dallas intellectual property work, 27.3% of the 44 lateral moves in the latest 12 months were team moves, against 5.1% for intellectual property everywhere. Boston, in the same practice, ran at 18.8% on 64 moves. In London international arbitration and public international law, team moves were 21.7% of 46 moves, 14.5 times the market rate.

The Dallas year also stands out in volume. Lateral moves into Dallas intellectual property practices rose 87.0%, from 23 to 43 in the settled 12-month windows, after calendar-year counts of 24, 24 and 23 in 2022, 2024 and 2025. Our record does not split that rise between team arrivals and individual hires, so it shows coincidence, not cause.

Size explains much of the spread between cities. Boston is the larger intellectual property market, with 64 moves against 44 in Dallas, and its team share is 8.5 points lower. The deeper the local base, the less one group shifts the share. A firm adding a team in a mid-sized practice city becomes the local story of the year; in a deep market the same team is one hire decision among many.

In the Sartori & Partners lateral database, firm lists, bands and ranks count individual lateral hires. Lawyers who arrive as one team in the same quarter are in the market totals but not in any firm's rank. Across the market the effect is small, because only 1.5% of lateral moves were team moves. In Washington insurance work it covers the larger part of the year: 57.7% of the cell's moves sit in the totals and in no firm's position.

That cuts both ways for the receiving firm. A firm that adds a whole group can rank below rivals that hired fewer lawyers one at a time, and anyone reading a competitor's place in a hiring list sees only its individual hires. In intellectual property as a whole, where 5.1% of moves came in teams, a list of hirers misses little. In Dallas, at 27.3%, it misses more. When you benchmark your hiring against rivals, add the team arrivals you know from public announcements; when you take in a team, expect your rank to reflect only the individual hires made around it.

Check the base before reading a share. The Washington insurance team share of 57.7% rests on 26 moves; the practice share of 3.1% rests on 672. In a small local practice, a team hire is the event of the year: prepare conflicts work, compensation for several partners at once and client communication on that scale before the first meeting.

Read rankings for what they hold. A firm that receives a team should state its growth in its own terms, since hiring lists carry individual hires only. A firm sizing up a rival should add announced team moves to that rival's position and treat the identified band as a floor under the announced size.

Where local team shares run high, as in Dallas intellectual property at 27.3% and London arbitration at 21.7%, expect groups to be offered as units. Price such a hire as one decision with one integration plan, and set retention terms for your own groups in those cities on the assumption that rivals approach them the same way.