Insurance Defense Lateral Moves: The Title Comes With the Move

For a firm weighing insurance defense lateral moves, the first number to know is how often the candidate expects a better title. Sartori & Partners data show that 20.7% of insurance defense laterals in the last 12 months joined at a higher title than the one they left, against 15.7% in product liability and torts and 12.9% across the whole market. The step counted here is an associate joining as counsel or partner, or a counsel joining as partner. In this field the title is part of the price of the move, and a search that opens at the same rank starts below where many candidates will settle.

The insurance defense rate is 1.6 times the market rate, a gap of 7.8 points. Against product liability and torts, the practice it sits in, the gap is 5.0 points. The share rests on 246 insurance defense arrivals over the 12 months, enough to read it as a pattern rather than a few unusual hires.

A note on method: insurance defense is the lawyer's own focus today, while the practice is the group a move was recorded under, and the two are counted separately. The comparison is therefore between shares, never between headcounts. For a hiring partner the reading is plain. A defense associate who asks to join as counsel, or a counsel who asks for partnership, is asking for what 20.7% of movers in the field received, and the offer should be built with that in view.

Over 3 years, 17.2% of insurance defense movers joined at a higher title. The last 12 months sit 3.5 points above that longer record. The comparisons barely shifted: product liability and torts posted 15.0% over 3 years against 15.7% in the last 12 months, and the market 12.3% against 12.9%.

Volume went the other way. Insurance defense hiring fell 14.7% year on year, with 255 moves in the latest settled 12 months against 299 in the 12 months before. Partner hiring fell 30.2%, at 67 against 96. Over the same windows the market rose 9.0% and product liability and torts held flat (+2.3%).

Fewer moves and more promotions fit one reading: the insurance defense seats that do open are being filled by offering a step rather than a same-rank chair. In the Sartori & Partners lateral database, neither the practice nor the market shows that split, since both kept their title rates close to the longer record. A firm planning next year's defense hiring should price the title into the budget now, because the openings are fewer and the candidates who take them expect more.

The level mix shows where the step tends to land. Counsel made up 17.5% of insurance defense moves in the last 12 months, against 12.7% across the market and 16.8% in product liability and torts. Partners were 27.2%, close to the market's 27.7%, and associates 55.3% against 58.5%.

These figures count the title joined, not the step taken, so they cannot show that the extra counsel are promoted associates. Even so, a counsel share 4.8 points above the market is what one would expect where firms use counsel as the rank that wins a senior associate. For the hiring side, a counsel title for a senior insurance defense associate is the normal opening offer in this field, not a concession made late in the talks.

Over 3 years, Sartori & Partners counted 29.4% of insurance defense movers with a known origin leaving firms of under 150 lawyers. Across the market the same share was 11.4%, and in product liability and torts 20.6%. Firms of 1,000+ lawyers supplied 32.1% of insurance defense movers, against 56.6% market-wide.

On the hiring side the weight sits in the middle. Firms of 150-399 lawyers took 28.8% of insurance defense hires in the last 12 months, against 13.3% across the market, while firms of 1,000+ lawyers took 37.5% against 53.6%. The origin and title figures are not joined move by move, so they do not prove that the small-firm movers are the ones gaining a title. They do show where to look: regional defense shops and boutiques, where the pitch is a higher title on a larger platform.

Hiring here is concentrated. The top 10 firms took 50.0% of individual insurance defense hires in the last 12 months, against 30.0% in product liability and torts and 12.9% across the market. For partner hires the top 10 share was 61.2%. Sartori & Partners counted 84 firms hiring in the speciality over the 12 months.

The list is headed by Wilson Elser Moskowitz Edelman & Dicker, The Chartwell Law Offices and Kennedys Law. Hirers at this volume can promise a title in one office and backfill the seat in another. A firm outside the group should not try to match that reach. It competes with a specific seat instead: a stated title, a defined share of carrier work and a decision in weeks rather than months.

Insurance defense movers are also mobile: 23.8% changed city with the move, against 20.5% across the market. That widens the pool a firm can reach for a given office, if the offer is worth the relocation.

Three decisions follow. Settle the title before the search opens: with 20.7% of movers joining a rank higher, a seat that can only go at the same level will draw a thinner shortlist. Recruit from firms of under 150 lawyers, where 29.4% of the candidates have come from, and judge them on their caseload and trial record rather than on the size of the firm they leave. Move quickly, because a small group of national hirers takes 50.0% of the market and can close an offer while a committee is still meeting.