Government Contracts Lawyers: Disputes, Deals and Washington

Government contracts law firms tend to be read as dispute shops: bid protests, claims, False Claims Act defense. The record says otherwise. Sartori & Partners data show 243 dated matters over three years with government contracts lawyers on them, and the work splits between contested matters and transactions. Disputes and investigations account for 32.1% of those matters and M&A for 23.5%. For a firm adding a government contracts partner, that changes the profile to recruit: the lawyer who can carry diligence on a contractor acquisition is part of the same bench as the one who argues the protest.

The gap between the two matter types is 8.6 points, narrow for a speciality that is usually filed under litigation. The practice it belongs to points the same way on the people side: litigation and disputes appears on 46.3% of public law and government moves, so most of the bench still has a contentious footing. The matter record shows that a large part of that bench also works on transactions.

In the most recent 12 months, 87 matters carried a government contracts lawyer. The two shares are not a split of the whole. The practical point for a hiring committee is in the M&A share: a candidate's matter list should be read for transactional work as well as contested work, because a partner who can staff both kinds of mandate is worth more to a platform than one who covers only the courtroom side.

Over three years, government and public sector clients appear on 25.5% of government contracts matters. Aerospace and defense follows at 11.5%, and construction and engineering at 8.6%. The first share is 2.2 times the second.

The order tells a firm where a lateral partner's book is likely to come from. A partner whose matters sit with agencies and public bodies brings work that follows the procurement cycle; one whose matters sit with defense primes and their suppliers brings work that also follows consolidation in that industry, which is where the M&A share comes from. Ask candidates which of the two their matters lean toward, and test the answer against the client list they are able to describe.

Washington, DC took 36.9% of government contracts lateral moves in 12 months, against 5.6% of all lateral moves. That is an index of 658. The public law and government practice, itself a Washington-heavy group, sits at 464, with 26.0% of its moves in the city. In the Sartori & Partners lateral database, the speciality's pull toward the capital is stronger than its practice's on both measures.

These lawyers relocate somewhat more than the average lateral: 24.1% changed city when they moved, against 22.8% in the practice and 20.5% across the market. Government contracts lawyers make up 29.1% of the moves recorded under public law and government. A firm without a Washington office is fishing in a thin pool; a firm with one should expect most of its competition for the same candidate to sit a few blocks away.

Among moves to firms whose size we know, firms of 1,000+ lawyers took 44.7% of government contracts hires, below the market's 53.6%. Firms of 400-999 lawyers took 35.9%, against 23.4% across the market and 27.3% in the practice.

Over three years, 145 firms hired at least one government contracts lawyer, and the top 10 took 22.8% of the moves, against 16.3% for the top 10 in the practice over the same span. DLA Piper ranks first, in the 11-20 band of hires.

On the matter side, Morrison & Foerster ranks first over three years, in the 41-60 band of matters. A mid-size firm does not need to outbid the largest platforms to build this bench; the class it belongs to already takes more than its usual weight of the hires.

Sartori & Partners data show partner hiring in government contracts going from 42 to 42 across the two settled windows, so it held flat (+0.0%). Market-wide partner hiring rose 8.4% over the same windows. All government contracts hiring held flat (+6.7%), from 104 to 111 moves, while the parent practice held flat (-4.9%).

Partners were 35.9% of government contracts moves in 12 months, against 27.7% across the market and 34.1% in the practice. Home-grown supply is slow: lawyers with this focus made partner after a median of 11.0 years in practice over the last 5 years. A steady partner count and a long route to promotion mean the lateral pool does not deepen on its own, so a firm that wants a partner this year should expect to win the candidate from a direct rival rather than find a new one.

Write the brief for both halves of the work. With M&A at 23.5% of matters over three years, a government contracts partner who has run diligence and transaction structuring for contractors is as relevant as a protest litigator, and the firms that recruit only from the contentious side leave part of the work unstaffed. Read candidate matter lists for both, and weight the client mix: public bodies first, then aerospace and defense.

Search Washington first and widely. With an index of 658, the bench is concentrated there more heavily than in the practice as a whole, and candidates elsewhere are few. Plan on a competitive process: partner hiring stayed flat at 42 in each window, so the supply of movable partners is fixed for now. A firm in the 400-999 lawyers class should press the advantage its class already shows, with a pitch built on the role and the platform's reach into both deals and disputes.