Which Law Firms Act for Consumers: Disputes Are 91.2% of Deals

A general counsel facing claims from customers or members of the public soon asks which law firms represent consumers against companies, and what those firms spend their time on. Sartori & Partners data show 658 deals with individual or consumer clients in the 12 months to October 2026, spread across 298 distinct clients. Disputes and investigations were 91.2% of them. Across all 48,131 deals in the same window, the type was 25.0%. Put plainly, when the client is a person, the matter is almost always a fight, and the firms on the other side of it are not the firms a company hires for its own transactions. This report covers what the claims are about, which firms appear most often for individual clients, where their lawyers sit, how large the matters are, and what a legal department should do with that.

In the Sartori & Partners deal records, disputes and investigations are 91.2% of deals for individuals and consumers, 3.6 times the share the type holds across the whole market. Sectors known for litigation stay well short of that. Disputes were 44.6% of government and public sector deals and 30.2% of insurance deals, both already above the market rate of 25.0%. The gap between individual clients and the whole market is 66.2 points.

For a company, the consequence is direct. When a law firm acts for an individual against it, the firm almost always arrives as a litigator, not as a counterparty across a negotiating table. The first contact is a claim letter, a complaint or a regulator's inquiry, and the response belongs with the disputes team from the first day, not with the business unit that sold the product.

Sorting the same deals by practice shows what the claims are about. Product Liability & Torts lawyers worked on 21.3% of deals with individual clients, 10.1 times their 2.1% share of all deals. These are injury, defective product and negligence claims, the matters a consumer-facing business meets most often. Public Law & Government follows at 18.7%, against 1.8% market-wide, a reminder that part of this work is aimed at public bodies rather than at companies.

Smaller practices tell the same story. White Collar, Investigations & Criminal lawyers appear on 7.1% of deals for individuals against 0.4% of all deals, and Immigration on 5.2% against 0.1%. Employment & Labor, the practice an employer might expect to meet most, sits at 3.2%, against 0.7% market-wide. The product liability figure is the one to plan around: it is the practice most likely to bring an individual's lawyer to the door, and it calls for a named defense team with trial experience, not a general litigation panel.

Sartori & Partners records rank the firms that acted for individual clients by deals advised, shown as bands. Irwin Mitchell and Hagens Berman Sobol Shapiro head the list, each in the 21-40 band of deals over 12 months. Stewarts, Sidley Austin, Duncan Lewis Solicitors, Bressler, Amery & Ross, Leigh Day, Orrick, Herrington & Sutcliffe and Jones Day follow in the 11-20 band, and McGuireWoods completes the list in the 6-10 band.

Set that list against the ten busiest advisers across all deals and only two names repeat: Sidley Austin, which ranks 8th across the whole market, and Jones Day, which ranks 6th. The other eight do not appear among the market's ten busiest firms. Scale differs too: the busiest market firms sit in the 1,200+ band of deals, while no firm acting for individuals passes the 21-40 band.

The practical point for a legal department is that the firms on the other side of consumer claims are largely a different group from the firms on its own panel. With the work spread across 298 clients and no firm above the 21-40 band, a company should track opposing counsel firm by firm as claims arrive, rather than assume that a handful of names will cover them.

The location figures measure where the work is done: the share of the sector's deals that had lawyers working on them from each city, where one deal can count in several cities. Lawyers in Washington, DC worked on 26.1% of deals for individual clients, against 20.3% for New York. In insurance the order runs the other way: 40.2% of insurance deals were handled with lawyers in New York and 13.6% with lawyers in Washington. Government and public sector deals also put New York first, at 24.9%, with Washington at 17.8%.

Seattle comes third for individual clients, at 7.4%, ahead of London at 6.8%; in insurance, London lawyers worked on 22.9% of deals. Washington's lead fits the practice mix, since public law, immigration and federal agency matters run through the capital. A company defending consumer claims should check that its counsel can staff Washington well, and should not assume that a panel built around New York covers the place where these matters are fought.

Value was disclosed on only 5.8% of deals with individual clients, against 20.4% in insurance and 22.3% for government and public sector deals. Where a value was public, the median was $18.8 million. Insurance deals had a median of $750 million, 39.9 times that figure, and public sector deals $1,000 million. Among sectors with a published median, the next lowest is fintech and payments, at $237.9 million.

Claims by individuals are seldom priced in public, and when they are, they are small by corporate standards. Small single values do not mean small exposure. For a company the risk sits in the number of claims and in what each one costs to defend, so budgets, reserves and reporting to the board should run on the whole portfolio of claims, with fee arrangements that suit many modest matters rather than one large one.

Deal volume for individuals and consumers rose 15.8%, from 584 to 676 in the settled 12-month windows. The whole deal market rose 10.6% over the same windows, from 43,590 to 48,216. The two sectors measured alongside it moved less: insurance deal volume held flat (+1.3%), and government and public sector volume held flat (+5.1%). Nothing in these figures suggests that claims from individuals are easing, so a legal department should plan defense capacity for at least the current level of matters next year.

Treat every claim from an individual as disputes work from the first letter: Sartori & Partners figures put disputes and investigations at 91.2% of deals for individual clients. Give product liability its own named defense team, since lawyers in that practice worked on 21.3% of these deals. Make sure outside counsel can staff Washington, where lawyers worked on 26.1% of the sector's deals. Keep a running file on the firms that act for individuals, starting with the list above, because few of them sit on a corporate panel. Finally, manage the claims as a portfolio: with a median disclosed value of $18.8 million, the cost lies in volume, and volume is still climbing.