It is quite conceivable to transition pending lawsuits to a new firm

When Pfizer shrank ten law firms to one firm to handle all its employment related work, “all existing employment cases were transferred to the firm [Jackson Lewis] except for one single-plaintiff case and two class actions.” This baton-passing is reported in Corp. Counsel, Vol. 15, Sept. 2008 at 84, and it confirms my belief that law departments can transition pending cases to other law firms.

Unless you believe that you can change horses in mid-stream without loss of quality or duplication of spending, you have lost your leverage with your incumbent litigation firms. If the collateral losses are acceptable, you can credibly maintain that you will move cases to other firms (See my post of
(See my post of Aug. 14, 2005: costs of transferring matters underway; July 21, 2006: disputes the imagined losses from transitioning cases to a new firm; Sept. 3, 2006: transitions of matters; Dec. 4, 2006 generally on the transition of matters; May 26, 2007: term periods for fixed-fee deals and transitions; July 27, 2007: negotiate alternative fees midstream; Dec. 17, 2007: hassles to change firms; and March 25, 2008: how to converge firms.).