Clyde & Co has hired a nine-strong team in Chicago from Lewis Brisbois Bisgaard & Smith, as the UK-based firm moves to build its insurance offering across North America. 

The team is led by partner Danny Worker, who was managing partner of Lewis Brisbois’ Chicago office. He is joined by six senior counsel, one of counsel and an associate, who specialise in insurance law and general liability matters.  

Eileen King Bower, partner and chair of Clydes’ North American board, said the team’s hire was in line with the firm’s strategy to deepen its offering across insurance lines and build strength across its key locations in North America.  

“With this breadth and depth of knowledge in handling complex cases, Danny is uniquely positioned to provide legal counsel on a national basis in liability and coverage litigation, and we are very excited to have him on board,” she added.  

Worker’s practice focuses on insurance coverage and bad faith litigation and he has served as national coordinating counsel and appellate monitoring counsel throughout the US. Worker has tried cases nationally and is experienced in handling rapid response to supplement trial teams in high exposure litigation. He also brings experience in complex business and commercial litigation, construction, consumer financial services, first-party property, class action and mass tort, environmental litigation, aviation, transportation, hospitality, marine and energy.  

Worker has joined Clydes after nearly 19 years at Lewis Brisbois, which lost around 140 lawyers last May to an employment boutique founded by the former leaders of the firm’s employment practice, which collapsed a few months later.  

In the wake of the exodus Lewis Brisbois founder Bob Lewis stepped down as managing partner and was succeeded by former vice chairman Gregory Katz as part of a wider leadership shuffle that also saw the firm disband its executive committee and elect five new members to add to its 10-strong management committee. 

The firm told Reuters it had hired more than 70 lawyers last November and December alone and that 2023 had been its strongest year yet. In January, however, the firm saw a seven-strong team exit to open an office in Houston for Dinsmore & Shohl.  

Meantime the team’s arrival at Clydes follows a period of expansion for the firm in North America that in the past 18 months has seen it add a quartet of insurance partners from McLennan Ross to open in Calgary and absorb a 14-lawyer insurance boutique to set up shop in Boston. The firm now has more than 350 lawyers across 20 offices in North America.  

The firm reported significant revenue growth following its merger with UK insurance law firm BLM in 2022, with turnover in the financial year ending April 30, 2023 increasing by 20% to £788.6m. Meantime profit at the firm increased by 6% to £169.2m, while profit per equity partner remained at £708k.