Torridon Law, the firm founded by former U.S. Attorney General Bill Barr, has signed a 36,500-square-foot sublease at 1201 Pennsylvania Avenue NW, growing its footprint by 66% from its current 22,000-square-foot office. The deal lands the fast-growing firm, known for stacking its ranks with former government officials, at one of downtown Washington's most heavily reinvented office towers.
According to Bisnow, Torridon is subleasing the space from Bass, Berry & Sims, with a spokesperson for that firm saying Torridon is taking its entire space. Torridon currently leases the top floor at 801 17th St. NW, a building delivered in 2009 and owned by Morgan Stanley's Prime Property Fund, where it inked its lease in the third quarter of 2024. Neither Torridon Law nor Morgan Stanley responded to requests for comment from Bisnow, and the firm offered no immediate explanation for the move.
A Building Reborn After Losing Its Anchor Tenant
1201 Pennsylvania Avenue NW is a 445,000-square-foot property owned by New York-based Sentinel Real Estate, which completed a $15 million repositioning of the building in 2017 after Covington & Burling, its former anchor law firm, moved out. As Bisnow reported separately, that renovation added a 5,000-square-foot fitness center, a 200-seat conference center and a new HVAC system, along with upgrades to the lobby and rooftop terrace. Elephant & Castle occupies the ground floor along Pennsylvania Avenue.
The building has since filled up with a mix of law firms, trade groups and nonprofits, including Miles & Stockbridge, Duke University, the American Academy of Dermatology Association and the National Endowment for Democracy, which signed an 82,000-square-foot lease on the 10th and 11th floors that brought the property to around 90% leased, per the same Bisnow account. Other recent deals in the building include FiscalNote's 38,000 square feet on the sixth floor, a combined 35,000 square feet taken by Williams & Jensen and the Financial Services Institute on the seventh floor, and a 21,000-square-foot lease with the National Electrical Contractors Association for the 12th floor. New leases in the building have closed for between $60 and $70 per square foot, below the roughly $80-per-square-foot average along Pennsylvania Avenue.
From Attorney General to Firm Founder
Barr, who served as attorney general from 1991 to 1993 under President George H.W. Bush and again from 2019 to 2020 under the first Trump administration, founded Torridon in 2022. Since then, the firm has been rapidly hiring former government officials, turning into something of a landing spot for alumni of the first Trump administration.
Its ranks include Mike Pompeo, the former secretary of state, who joined Torridon Law and Torridon Group in summer 2025, according to Torridon Law's own announcements, as well as Pat Cipollone, the former White House counsel. Torridon also added two former Republican Virginia attorneys general in February 2026: Jason Miyares, who joined both Torridon Law and Torridon Group, and Richard Cullen, who also served as counselor to Virginia Governor Glenn Youngkin before joining the firm.
Law Firms Keep Driving D.C.'s Office Market
Law firms have historically been a key driver of leasing volume in the District, and that trend has only accelerated since the pandemic as large firms chase upgraded space amid rising revenues and competition for talent. Law firms accounted for more than 300,000 square feet of Washington, D.C., office leasing activity in the third quarter of 2026 alone, according to a Cushman & Wakefield MarketBeat report, out of just over 1.7 million square feet of gross leasing activity citywide that quarter.
The legal sector's appetite for space has been a national story too. U.S. legal-sector leasing hit a quarterly record of 7.3 million square feet in the second quarter of 2026, Cushman & Wakefield reported via Business Wire, with first-half 2026 leasing reaching nearly 12.2 million square feet nationally, up 17% year over year. Expansions made up 43% of legal leases signed in that first half, the highest share since 2019.
Still, the broader D.C. office market remains a mixed picture. Citywide vacancy rose to 23.5% in the third quarter of 2026, up 20 basis points from the prior quarter and 140 basis points year over year, while average full-service asking rents slipped to $55.15 per square foot. A separate report from Cresa found the District had about 313 sublease spaces totaling more than 2.8 million square feet available in the second quarter of 2026, with the East End and CBD accounting for 67% of that inventory — even as the overall market posted 229,543 square feet of positive net absorption and vacancy there ticked down to 21.9%.
Other Firms Making Moves Nearby
Torridon isn't the only firm reshuffling its D.C. footprint this year. Crowell & Moring relocated its Washington office in June into nearly 200,000 square feet across the top six floors of the redeveloped former WMATA headquarters in Penn Quarter, even though that new space is nearly 50% smaller than its previous footprint, according to the firm's own announcement. Elsewhere, a Trophy-class development at 725 12th Street NW was already fully pre-leased by law firms McDermott Will & Emery and Cooley LLP as of the second quarter of 2026, per Cresa's data, underscoring how much of downtown's new leasing activity is being driven by law firms chasing newer buildings.
