Two of Washington's best-known white-collar criminal defense lawyers have decided to split up after 19 years of defending celebrated clients in some of the city's and the country's highest-profile criminal cases.

As of Oct. 1, William G. Hundley of Hundley & Cacheris will join his close friend Robert S. Strauss at Akin, Gump, Strauss, Hauer & Feld, one of the city's largest law firms. His partner, Plato Cacheris, will start practicing law with Dunnells, Duvall, Bennett & Porter, which has a highly regarded white-collar criminal practice headed by Cacheris' close friends Robert S. Bennett and Carl S. Rauh.