Milan Lateral Partner Market 2026: Fewer Moves, a Home-Grown Pool

A firm leader weighing a partner hire or a new office in Italy's financial capital is looking at a city that shrank while the wider market grew. Sartori & Partners data show lateral hiring in Milan fell 24.5% between the two settled 12-month windows, from 139 moves to 105, while the market as a whole rose 9.0%. The Milan lateral partner market is small, local and concentrated: few movers arrive from other cities, and a short list of international firms does much of the hiring. This report sets Milan against the whole market, against Paris, and against London, the largest legal market in its region.

Milan gave back about a quarter of its lateral volume in one year, a fall of 24.5% on the settled windows. Across the whole market, lateral moves rose 9.0% over the same months, from 13,128 to 14,305. Paris also contracted: its lateral hiring fell 20.5%, from 347 to 276, so the Milan decline was 4.0 points deeper. London lateral hiring held flat (-2.5%), with 1,353 moves against 1,387.

The yearly series shows when the turn came. Milan recorded 132 lateral moves in 2024 and 146 in 2025, the highest year in the series, against 82 in 2026 through October. The slowdown is therefore recent, concentrated in the latest settled year rather than spread over several. Milan now accounts for 0.7% of lateral moves across the market and ranks 27th among cities. For a firm planning headcount, the consequence is a thinner flow of lawyers in motion: a search opened today in Milan draws on fewer active candidates than the same search would have found a year ago.

Partners did not follow the overall decline in a way the data can confirm. Milan recorded 22 lateral partner hires in the latest settled window against 27 in the window before, a change of -18.5% that is flat at counts this small. Across the market, lateral partner moves rose 8.4%. In London, partner hiring held flat (+1.3%), with 389 hires against 384.

Partners make a smaller part of the Milan market than of the market as a whole. They were 22.8% of Milan lateral moves in the past 12 months, against 27.7% across the market and 29.3% in London. Over three years the gap holds: partners were 20.7% of the city's 367 arrivals, against 26.9% market-wide. Milan hires associates and counsel in greater proportion, and its partner moves are few in absolute terms. A firm that needs a Milan partner should plan on a long search and on candidates who hear from several firms at once.

Mobility is where Milan departs most clearly from the market. Sartori & Partners figures show that only 12.8% of Milan lateral movers also changed city, against 20.5% across the market, a gap of 7.7 points. London sits between the two at 15.2%, while Paris is as local as Milan at 12.2%. The three-year reading is the same: 11.9% for Milan against 21.6% for the market.

Over three years, 64.9% of lawyers who joined a firm in Milan had left a job in the same city. London draws 60.9% of its arrivals from London itself and Paris 66.1% from Paris, so the major European centers all recruit mainly at home, but London logged 12.9 times as many lateral moves as Milan in 12 months. The candidates come from the same kind of firm as the hirers: 75.4% of Milan arrivals over three years whose former firm's size is known left firms of 1,000+ lawyers, against 56.6% across the market.

Firms of 1,000+ lawyers took 75.5% of Milan arrivals to firms of known size over three years, against 52.5% across the market, and 83.0% in the past 12 months. For a firm opening an office, this means the partners it wants are already in the city, mostly at large international firms; relocation from other cities is a narrow channel, and firms of under 150 lawyers supplied only 8.2% of three-year arrivals, against 11.4% across the market.

Milan lateral demand leans toward transactional work far more than the market does. Private equity appears on 20.8% of Milan moves, an index of 235 against the market, and banking and finance on 25.7%, an index of 184. Corporate and M&A, the largest group at 31.7%, indexes at 153.

London shows a similar tilt, with banking and finance at an index of 178, but its private equity index of 144 sits well below Milan's. Over three years, litigation and disputes appeared on 15.3% of Milan moves, against 41.0% across the market. A firm adding Milan partners in private equity or leveraged finance competes in the busiest part of the city's market, while a disputes hire draws on a much smaller flow of movers.

Concentration is the third trait that marks Milan. In the Sartori & Partners lateral database, the top 10 hirers in Milan took 55.4% of the city's lateral hires at all levels in the past 12 months, against 12.9% for the market's top 10, 41.5% in Paris and 22.8% in London. Only 37 firms made a lateral hire in Milan in 12 months, against 61 in Paris and 180 in London.

Over three years, Hogan Lovells Cadwalader heads the list of partner hirers, and every firm on it is an international firm. A newcomer bidding for a Milan partner is therefore competing with repeat buyers that know the same candidates and can move fast. Expect counter-offers, and expect a candidate to compare any approach with at least one of the firms above.

Do not read the fall in volume as an easier partner market. The decline is in all-level moves, while partner hiring stayed flat at 22 hires against 27, so the people a firm wants to hire as partners are as contested as before, and fewer of their colleagues are on the move with them.

Recruit inside the city. With 64.9% of arrivals coming from jobs in Milan and only 12.8% of movers changing city, an office opening built on relocating partners from London or Paris works against the grain of the market. Build the bench from Milan lawyers at large international firms, where most arrivals came from, and budget the time a local, concentrated search takes.

Weigh Milan against Paris before choosing between them. Paris lateral hiring fell 20.5% as well, but its partner hiring held flat (+13.1%) on a larger base of 69 hires, and more firms compete there. Milan offers a narrower field where transactional practices over-index: the right market for a private equity or finance partner, a thinner one for a litigator.