Los Angeles Partner Hiring 2026: An Employment and Litigation Market

Los Angeles lateral partner hiring is built on disputes and the workplace, not on deals. Sartori & Partners data show that employment and labor partners made up 20.1% of the 199 lateral partners who joined Los Angeles firms in the last 12 months, against 8.7% across the market: an index of 231. Litigation and disputes partners indexed at 145. The transactional side runs the other way, with corporate and M&A at 74 and banking and finance at 75. For a firm planning its next Los Angeles partner, that split decides which searches will meet the most rival offers and which will need to reach beyond the city.

The employment figure is the outlier in the city's partner market. In 12 months 40 employment and labor partners moved to Los Angeles firms, which makes the practice the second-largest partner group in the city after litigation. Its share of partner hires is 2.3 times the market's. No other practice published for the city comes near that: litigation follows at 145, intellectual property sits at 115 and real estate at 109. The pull is not confined to the partnership. Counting every level, employment and labor appeared in 23.3% of Los Angeles lateral moves, an index of 217.

An index this high cuts both ways for a hiring firm. Candidates exist in numbers, because employment partners make up a far larger slice of partner moves in Los Angeles than in the market as a whole. Rival bidders exist in numbers too. In the Sartori & Partners lateral database the most active hirer in the city at every level was Jackson Lewis, a workplace-law firm, with a band of 11-20 hires. A firm that wants an employment partner here should expect a short list that fills quickly and offers that compete on the same names, and should move from first meeting to terms faster than it would in a quieter practice.

Litigation and disputes is the largest partner practice across the market, at 39.5% of lateral partner hires. In Los Angeles it reaches 57.3%, an index of 145. San Francisco, the nearest comparison, stands at 51.3% with an index of 130. New York sits below the market, at 35.9% and an index of 91. Defense work adds to the disputes weight: across all levels, product liability and torts indexed at 172 in Los Angeles.

The bidding is also spread across more firms than in the other two coastal cities. The ten most active hirers at all levels, listed above, took 16.7% of Los Angeles lateral hires over 12 months, above the market's 12.9% but below San Francisco at 24.7% and New York at 21.5%. Firms of every size compete: at all levels, firms under 150 lawyers took 12.4% of Los Angeles lateral hires against 9.7% across the market. For a litigation search, the rival offer is as likely to come from a mid-size or boutique firm as from a national one, and the candidate list should be drawn as widely.

The deal practices tell the reverse story. Corporate and M&A partners were 16.6% of Los Angeles lateral partner hires against 22.3% across the market, an index of 74. Banking and finance indexed at 75 and private equity at 87. The contrast with the sibling cities is sharp. San Francisco hires corporate partners at an index of 139, and New York hires banking and finance partners at 161.

Fewer moves mean fewer partners in play. A Los Angeles corporate or finance search will see a shorter list of local candidates who are open to a move, and a longer wait for the right one. Firms building a transactional group in the city should plan for a search that reaches into other markets, or for a team hire, rather than expect a steady supply of local laterals.

Los Angeles hires mostly from within. Only 16.4% of its lateral moves at all levels involved a change of city, against 20.5% across the market. Where lawyers did relocate, three cities dominate over three years: San Francisco sent 58, New York 40 and San Diego 39. The flow runs net inward, with 95 lawyers arriving from other cities in 12 months and 65 leaving for them.

These lists count every level, not partners alone, but they show where a relocation is realistic. For the thin corporate and finance bench, New York is the obvious reach, since its partner market over-indexes in banking. San Francisco is closer and trades lawyers with Los Angeles in both directions: it is also the largest destination for lawyers leaving, at 36 over three years. A firm that adds a California office partner from the Bay Area should expect the same channel to work against it later.

Volume has held steady while the mix stayed tilted. Los Angeles took 191 lateral partners in the latest settled 12 months against 162 the year before, and the change held flat (+17.9%), inside the noise of two counts this size. Partner moves across the market rose 8.4% over the same windows.

Promotion is where the city departs from the market. Los Angeles firms promoted 93 lawyers to partner in 12 months. Measured against lateral hiring, the city made 0.49 partners for every lateral partner it bought, against 0.79 across the market. It leans on laterals more than both coastal comparisons: San Francisco promoted 0.55 per lateral partner and New York 0.76. Employment, the practice Los Angeles favors most, is one where firms elsewhere grow more of their own: across the market it promotes 0.95 partners per lateral, above the all-practice figure. Litigation, at 0.80, sits close to that figure. The city number does not split by practice, but the gap suggests Los Angeles firms fill their employment seats from each other's benches.

Treat employment and litigation as contested searches. With employment partners at an index of 231, the candidates are there, and so are the competing offers: set the economics before the first meeting and keep the timetable short. In litigation, widen the field to mid-size and boutique firms, which take a larger share of hires here than across the market.

Treat corporate and finance as build-or-relocate decisions. At an index of 74 for corporate partners, the local supply is thin, and the realistic sources are New York, San Francisco and San Diego, or a team move. Finally, weigh the promotion route: at 0.49 promotions per lateral partner, the city promotes fewer partners per lateral hire than the market, San Francisco or New York, so a firm that grows its own employment and litigation partners depends less on a market where every hire is fought over.