Our friends at The American Lawyer revealed their list of the top lateral hires in Big Law from last year in an online feature that went live yesterday. In a year where transactional lawyers got a lot of shine in Big Law, we counted an impressive group of 10 litigation hires that made the list of 25 moves Am Law says “left the biggest imprint on the industry in 2021.” 

To have such a large chunk of the list made up of litigators is all the more impressive when you consider that tally doesn’t even include a couple of moves involving lawyers with dockets that include a mix of compliance and litigation work. Namely, Ian Conner, the former Federal Trade Commission Bureau of Competition director joined Latham & Watkins rather than returning to his prior law firm home at Kirkland & Ellis, and Marc Elias, the former Perkins Coie partner and election law expert known for his work on behalf of the Democratic Party, formed a new boutique, Elias Law Group, with 10 other Perkins Coie partners and three counsel.