City monitor · November 2026
Cleveland: lateral market monitor
Lawyers who joined a new firm in Cleveland over the last 12 months: how many, at what level, in which practices and with which firms.
The last 12 months: November 2025 to October 2026
- 84
- Lateral moves, 12 monthsNovember 2025 to October 2026
- +55.2%
- Year on yearSettled 12-month windows
- 21.4%
- Partner share of moves
- 28
- Firms that hired
What the data show
In the Sartori & Partners lateral record, 84 lawyers joined a new firm in Cleveland from November 2025 to October 2026, 0.6% of all lateral moves we tracked. Measured on settled 12-month windows, 90 moves against 58 the year before, the count rose 55.2%. That runs ahead of the wider market, which moved +9.0%.
At 21.4%, partners are a smaller slice of arrivals than in the market as a whole (27.7%). 15.5% of movers stepped up a level when they changed firm, against 12.9% for the market.
- Partner21.4%
- Counsel23.8%
- Associate54.8%
Lateral hires in Cleveland were spread across 28 firms. Ten firms account for 67.9% of arrivals, against 12.9% across the market: concentrated. Calfee, Halter & Griswold ranks first by lateral arrivals, in the 11-20 band.
Litigation & Disputes ranks first among practices, involved in 41.7% of the city's arrivals against 39.9% of the whole market. A change of city came with 14.3% of moves (market 20.5%).
For a firm building a team in Cleveland, associate supply is active; the partner hire is the scarcer piece and the one to start first.
Firms by rank and band
Each firm appears as a rank and a band, never an exact count, and only with at least 10 moves in the window.
| Rank | Firm | Moves (band) |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Calfee, Halter & Griswold | 11-20 |
| 2 | Taft Stettinius & Hollister | 11-20 |
| 3 | Womble Bond Dickinson | 3-5 |
| 4 | Benesch Friedlander Coplan & Aronoff | 3-5 |
| 5 | Hinshaw & Culbertson | 3-5 |
| 6 | Tucker Ellis | 3-5 |
| 7 | Squire Patton Boggs | 3-5 |
| 8 | Dinsmore | 3-5 |
| 9 | Jones Day | 3-5 |
| 10 | Hahn Loeser & Parks | 3-5 |
Related monitors and reports
Practices in Cleveland
- Litigation & Disputes35 moves
- Corporate & M&A22 moves
Other cities
- New York
- London
- Washington, DC
- Los Angeles
- Chicago
- San Francisco
- Boston
- Dallas
- Houston
- Miami
- Philadelphia
- Paris
- Atlanta
- Denver
- Seattle
- Toronto
- Charlotte
- San Diego
- Brussels
- Manchester
- Nashville
- Sydney
- Dubai
- Hong Kong
- Austin
- Minneapolis
- Frankfurt
- Milan
- Amsterdam
- Tampa
- Singapore
- Montreal
- Munich
- Bristol
- Pittsburgh
- Raleigh
- Leeds
- Detroit
- Phoenix
- Portland
- St. Louis
- Orlando
- Calgary
- Warsaw
- Columbus
Hiring in this market
Reports
- Cleveland Lateral Partner Market: Counsel Move as Often as Partners
Counsel made 23.8% of lateral moves into Cleveland over 12 months, 1.9 times the market share and a little more than partners. The three-year record matches, and firms of 150-399 lawyers do far more of the hiring than they do nationally.
November 11, 2026 · November 2026
Edition November 2026. Window: November 2025 to October 2026. Source: Sartori & Partners, from public law-firm announcements, firm websites and professional profiles, checked monthly. Methodology. Spot an error? [email protected].
For law firm leaders
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