Mass tort and class action litigation firm Seeger Weiss has been siphoning off talent from the defense side of Am Law 100 litigation practices since it was founded in 1999 by attorneys seeking an escape from the “bureaucratic impediments” that Big Law posed to their careers.

And this strategy has continued into this year with the addition of a junior partner from Fox Rothschild and an up-and-coming associate formerly of Milbank. The firm’s recruitment, said founding partner Stephen Weiss, has targeted lawyers who help diversify the practice, expanding from insurance fraud cases into the burgeoning practice of pharmaceutical multidistrict litigation and more recently environmental litigation.